



' ^% ^,Wl^: -'.'^^^:- 














Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/continentaleuropOObond 



CONTINENTAL EUROPE 



12^0 to isç8 



Revised and adapted from the French of 
P. BONDOIS and CH. DUFAYARD 



BY 
CHALFANT ROBINSON, Ph.D. 

Assistant Professor of History, 
Princeton University 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1916 



J]2ûZ 
3é 



Copyright, 1916, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



JAN -2191? ■ 



©CU453419 



PREFACE 

The text which appears here as Continental Europe, 1270-IS9S 
is, by permission of the French publishers, mainly a free transla- 
tion of L'histoire de l'Europe et en particulier de la France de 
i2yo à 1610, par P. Bondois, Agrégé d'histoire, Professeur au 
lycée Buffonj et Ch. Dufayard, Docteur es lettres. Professeur au 
lycée Henri IV. 

In its original form this book contains four chapters on Eng- 
land, a chapter on Paris in the XIV century, and one on the 
Renaissance in France. These it seemed best to omit and to use 
the space thus obtained in expanding other chapters which were 
too condensed in their treatment. The chapters handled in this way 
are chiefly those concerned with the reign of Philip the Fair, Italy, 
Germany, the Turks, Spain, the Reformation in Germany, and 
the Renaissance in Italy. In modifying these and some of the 
others the writer has freely supplemented the original French text 
with matter and quotations taken from standard historical works. 

Even with these changes nearly half the book relates to France. 
In view of this fact it would seem that some sort of explanation 
should be made to the reader for allotting to a single country 
this amount of space in a text which bears the title of Continental 
Europe. The justification, in the mind of the writer, for thus 
emphasizing France, rests not so much upon her relative impor- 
tance from 1300 to 1600, as upon the exceptional development of 
the French Monarchy and the definite form given during that time 
to her political institutions. Not only is this political growth 
continuous, but by 1598 France has attained to a permanent terri- 
torial unity. This achievement marks her for distinction among 
her neighbors, and makes the history of France indispensable to a 
proper understanding of the history of Continental Europe. 

The bibliographies to be found in the original French text 
are for the most part in French, German, or Latin. They are 
omitted here as not serving their purpose in view of the many 
detailed bibliographies Xvhich are accessible to students of history. 



iv PREFACE 

No effort has been made, therefore, to compile a list of books in 
English which would even attempt to cover the varied subjects 
considered in this work. 

In the revision as well as in the translation considerable liberty 
has been taken with both the form and matter of the original 
text. For this reason, while the merit of the book belongs to its 
distinguished authors, Professors Bondois and Dufayard, the 
writer feels that he should assume entire responsibility for the 
historical accuracy of any statement made in the narrative which 
follows. 

Chalfant Robinson. 

Princeton, 

June, 1916. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

General Survey of Europe at the End of the XIII Century . i 

Europe from 1270 to 1598, i — The Great Interregnum, 2 — 
The Electors, 2 — The Princes, Lay and "Ecclesiastical, 3 — The 
Towns, 4 — The Hansa, 4 — Italy, 5 — The Papacy, 5 — France, 6 
— England, 6 — Spain and Portugal, 7 — Scandinavia, 7 — The 
Orient, 8 — The Slavs, 8 — Conclusion, 9. 

CHAPTER II 

The Aggressive Policy of the French Monarchy, 1270-1328 . . 10 

The Government of Philip III, the Bold, 1270-1285, 10 — Wars 
with Castile and Aragon, 11 — The Sicilian Vespers, 11 — Char- 
acter of the Reign of Philip IV, the Fair, 1285-1314, 12 — His Do- 
mestic Policy, 12 — Progress of Royalty, 14 — The Lawyers and 
Royal Justice, 14 — The Diminishing Feudalism, 15 — The Estates 
General, 15 — Philip's Religious Policy, 17 — Philip the Fair and 
Boniface VIII, 17 — The Attack at Anagni in 1303, 19 — Trial of 
the Knights Templar, 20 — The Army under Philip the Fair, 22 
— The Wars of Philip the Fair, 23 — Territorial Acquisitions of 
Philip the Fair, 24 — The Prestige of the French Crown, 25 — 
The Centralized Administration of Philip the Fair, 25 — ^The 
Council, 26 — The Parlement. Administration of Justice, 26 — 
The Local Administration, 26 — The Chamber of Accounts. 
Financial Administration, 27 — Summary of the Reign of Philip 
the Fair, 28 — Reign of Louis X, 1314-1316, 28 — Reign of 
Philip V, the Tall, 1316-1322, 29— Reign of Charles IV, the 
Fair, 1322-1328, 30. 

CHAPTER III 

Philip VI and John the Good, 1328-13 64 — The Hundred Years' 

War 31 

Philip VI of Valois, 1328-1350, 31 — The War with Flanders, 
1328, 31 — The Hundred Years' War. Its Origin, 32 — The 
Forces of the Two Countries, 33 — The Beginning of the War, 34 
— War of the Breton Succession, 34 — The English Invasion. The 
Battle of Crécy, 1346, 35 — The Capture of Calais, 36 — End of the 

V 



\ 



vL CONTENTS 



Reign of Philip VI, 37 — The Increase of the Royal Domain, 38 
— John II, 1350-1364, 38 — Charles the Bad, 39 — Resumption of 
Hostilities with the English, 39 — The Estates General, 1355, 40 — 
The Battle of Poitiers, 1356, 41 — The Dauphin and Etienne 
Marcel, 42 — The Estates General of 1356, 42 — The Great 
Ordinance of March 3, 1357, 43 — The Parisian Revolt, 45 — 
The Jacquerie, 45 — Death of Etienne Marcel, 1358, 46 — The 
Treaty of Brétigny, 1360, 47 — Death of John the Good, 1364, 48. 



CHAPTER IV 

Charles V and Du Guesclin, 13 64-1 3 80 49 

The Condition of France in 1364, 49— Character of Charles V, 
49 — Bertrand Du Guesclin, 50 — War with Navarre, 1364-1365, 
51 — End of the War in Brittany, 1364-1365, 52 — Du Guesclin 
and the Great Companies, 52 — The War in Castile, 53 — The 
Breach with England, 54 — The New System of Warfare, 55 — 
Defeat of the English, 55 — Brittany and Du Guesclin, 56 — The 
Government of Charles V, 57 — The Parlement, 58 — The Army, 
58 — The Finances, 59 — The Results of the Reign of Charles V, 
60. 

CHAPTER V 

Institutions and Arts of France in the XIV Century . . . 62 

New Character of the Monarchy, 62 — Growth of the Royal 
Domain, 62 — The Monarchy Definitely Organized, 63 — Splendor 
of the Monarchy, 63 — The Central Power, 64 — The Parlement 
of Paris, 64 — The Grand Council, 66 — The Chancellor, 66 — 
The Petitions of the Royal Household, 66 — The Chamber of Ac- 
counts and the Administration of Finance, 67 — The Estates 
General and the Provincial Estates, 68 — The Provincial Admin- 
istration, 69 — The Army, 69 — The Nobility, 71 — The Clergy, 
72 — The Third Estate and the Townspeople, 72 — Prosperity and 
Decadence of France, 73 — Science and Art, 75. 

CHAPTER VI 

The Reign of Charles VI, 1 380-1422 77 

The Minority of Charles VI, 77 — The Insurrection of 1382 
/ (Maillotins), 78 — The War in Flanders, 1382, 79 — The Reaction 

in Paris, 1383, 80 — The Marmousets, 1388-1392, 80 — The King's 
Madness, 81 — The Dismissal of the Marmousets, 82 — John the 
Fearless and Louis of Orléans, 83 — The Murder of the Duke 
of Orleans, 1407, 84 — The Armagnacs and the Burgundians, 
85 — The Cabochiens, 85 — The University of Paris, 86 — The 
Great Cabochien Ordinance, 141 3, 86 — Excesses of the Ca- 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

bochiens and the Armagnacs, 141 3, 88 — Resumption of the Hun- 
dred Years' War, 88 — Agincourt, 141 5, 88 — The Tyranny of 
the Armagnacs, 89 — The Triumph of the Burgundians, 1418, 90 
— Assassination of John the Fearless, 90 — The Treaty of Troyes, 
1420, 91. 

CHAPTER Vn 

Charles VH and Joan of Arc 92 

Charles VH and Henry VI, 92 — The Sad Condition of France, 
93 — The Battle of Verneuil, 1424, 93 — Siege of Orléans, 1428, 
93 — The Awakening of a National Sentiment, 94 — Joan of Arc, 
1412-1431, 95 — Joan at Chinon, 97 — Relief of Orléans, May 8, 
1429, 97 — Coronation of Charles VH, July 17, 1429, 98 — Cap- 
tivity of Joan of Arc, 99 — Her Trial, 100 — Her Death, May 30, 
1431, 102 — The Treaty of Arras, 1435, 103 — The Praguerie, 105 
— The Skinners, io6 — End of the Hundred Years' War, 106 — 
\ The Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, 107 — The Conquest of 
\ Guienne, 107 — Last Years of Charles VII, 108. 

CHAPTER VIII 

France in the XV Century no 



Character of the Reign of Charles VII, no — The Grand 
Council, III — The Estates General, 112 — The Provincial Es- 
tates, 112 — The Army before the Reforms of Charles VII, 113 — 
Reforms in the Army, 114 — The Dragoon Companies (Com- 
pagnies d'Ordonnance, 1445), 115 — The Tax-free Archers 
(Francs-Archers), 116 — Artillery, 117 — Judiciary Institutions, 
118 — Financial Institutions, 119 — The Domain, 120 — The Aides, 
120 — The Taille, 121 — Jacques Cœur, 121 — The Crown and the 
Church, 124 — Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, 1438, 124 — The 
Humiliation of the University, 125 — The Aristocracy, 126 — The 
Third Estate, 127. 



CHAPTER IX 



7ir 



The German Empire from 1273 to 1347 — The Hapsburgs — The 

Swiss — The House of Luxemburg 129 

Rudolf of Hapsburg, 129 — The Hapsburgs, 130 — The Last of 
the Przemyslids of Bohemia. Ottokar II, 131 — Rudolf and the 
German Princes, 132 — Rudolf and the Towns, 132 — The House 
of Austria, 133 — Adolf of Nassau, 1292-1298, 133 — Albert of 
Austria, 1298-1308, 134 — The Forest Cantons of Switzerland, 
134 — The Struggle Against the Austrian Princes, 1291-1315, 
135 — The Legend of William Tell, 135 — The Swiss Confedera- 
tions, 136 — The House of Luxemburg, 137 — Henry VII, 1308- 
1313, 138 — Henry VII, the Pope, and the Ghibellines of Italy, 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1308-1314, 138 — Louis of Bavaria. Frederick the Fair, 1314- 
1330» 139 — The Struggle of the Empire and the Papacy, 139 — 
The Pragmatic Sanction, 140. 

CHAPTER X 

Germany in the XIV and XV Centuries, 1347-1519 . . . .143 

Charles IV, 1347-1378, 142 — Charles IV in Italy, 142 — The 
Golden Bull, 1356, 143 — The Provisions of the Golden Bull, 
143 — The Weakness of Charles IV in Germany, 1356-1378, 144 
— Bohemia at the Time of Charles IV, 145 — Arts and Letters 
at the Court of Charles IV, 146 — The German Towns of the 
XIV Century, 146 — The Struggle of the Towns and the Nobles 
in the XIV Century, 147 — The Hanseatic League, 147 — Wenzel, 
1378-1400, 148 — His Deposition in 1400, 148 — Rupert of Bavaria, 
1400-1410, 149 — The Emperor Sigismund, 1411-1437, 149 — The 
Insurrection in Bohemia, 1409-1419, 150 — Sigismund and the 
Hussites, 151 — Prokop the Great. End of the Hussite War, 
1436, 151 — The Progress of the House of Hohenzollern, 152 — 
The Teutonic Order of Knights, 152 — Albert II of Austria, 
1438-1439, 153 — Frederick III, 1440-1493, 153 — Frederick III and 
Germany, 154 — Ladislaus the Posthumous, King of Bohemia. 
George Podiebrad, 155 — Hungary from 1387 to 1526, 155— "" ~- 
Maximilian I, 1493-1519, 156 — Maximilian's Ideas, 157 — Re- 
organization of Germany, 157 — Germany in 1519, 158. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Great Schism and the Councils of Constance and Basel, 

1378-1450 159 

The Church in the XIV and XV Centuries, 159— The Schism, 
159 — The Decadence of the Church, 160 — Mysticism, 160 — John 
Wyclif, 1324-1384, 161 — John Hus, 1396-1415, 162 — The French 
Theologians, 162 — The Council of Constance, 1414-1418, 163 — 
The Question of the Schism, 163 — The Deposition of the Three 
Popes, 164 — The Condemnation of John Hus, 165 — Failure of 
the Council of Constance, 165 — The Council of Basel, 166 — De- 
liberations of the Council of Basel, 166 — Failure of the Council 
of Basel, 167 — The New Schism and the Council of Florence, 
167 — The End of the Council of Basel, 168. 



CHAPTER XII 

Italy in the XIV and XV Centuries 169 

Italy in the XIV Century, 169 — Guelf and Ghibelline, 170 — 
The Italian Cities, 171 — Rome without the Popes, 173 — ^The 



CONTENTS ix 



Popes at Avignon, 174 — Rienzi, 1347-1354, 174 — Florence before 
the Medici, 176 — The Rise of the Medici, 176 — The Venetian 
Republic, 178 — Italy During the Schism. Nicholas V, 178 — 
The Popes at the End of the XV Century, 178 — The Borgia. 
Alexander VI, 1492-1503, 179 — The Career of Cccsar Borgia, 
179 — Lorenzo de' Medici, 1464-1492, 182 — Savonarola, 1452-1498, 
183 — Ludovico II Moro, 184. 



CHAPTER XIII 



Loms XI, 1461-1483 186 

France in the Middle of the XV Century, i86 — The Acces- 
sion of Louis XI, 187 — His Character, 187 — Early Years of 
His Reign, 1461-1464, 188 — The League of the Public Weal, 
1464, 189 — The Battle of Montlhéry, 1465, 190 — The Treaties 
of Conflans and of Saint-Maur, 1465, 190 — The Breaking of the 
Treaties, 191 — The Second League of the Nobles, 1467, 192 — 
The Interview at Péronne, 1468, 193 — The Breaking of the 
Treaty of Péronne, 193 — The Third League of the Nobles, 
1471, 194 — The War with Burgundy, 195 — Louis XI and His 
Domestic Enemies, 195 — The Projects of Charles the Bold, 196 
— The Fourth League, 1475, 197 — War of Charles the Bold 
Against the Swiss, 1476, 198 — The Death of Charles the Bold, 
1477, 199 — The Burgundian Succession, 199 — Death of Louis XI, 
1483, 200 — The Aggrandizement of the Royal Domain, 201 — 
The Army Under Louis XI, 201 — His Judicial, Financial, and 
Religious Policy, 202 — Commerce and Industry, 202 — Conclu- 
sion, 203. 



CHAPTER XIV 



The French Invasion of Italy . . , 204 

Accession of Charles VIII, 1483-1498, 204 — The Estates Gen- 
eral at Tours in 1484, 205— The " Fools' War," 1485-1488, 207 — 
The French Acquisition of Brittany, 1491, 207 — Italian Plans of 
Charles, 208 — The Treaties of Étaples, Narbonne, and Senlis, 
1492-1493, 209 — Charles VIII in Italy, 209 — Charles VIII at 
Rome, 1494, 210 — Conquest of the Realm of Naples, 1495, 211 — 
The Retreat of Charles VIII from Italy, 1495, 211 — His Death, 
April 7, 1498, 212 — Accession of Louis XII, 1498-1515, 212 — Louis 
XII in Milan, 1499-1500, 213 — Conquest and Loss of the King- 
dom of Naples, 1 500-1 504, 214 — The Treaties of Blois, 1504- 
1505, 215 — Submission of Genoa to France, 1507, 216 — The 
League of Cambrai Against Venice, 1508, 216 — Humiliation of 
Venice, 1509, 217 — Character of Louis XII, 218 — Julius II 
Against the French, 1511, 218 — Exploits of Gaston de Foix in 
Italy, 1512, 219 — French Reverses. The Loss of Italy, 219 — 
The Treaty of London, 1514, 220 — Death of Louis XII, 220. 



X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XV 

The Ottoman Turks in Europe 221 

The Fall of the Latin Empire, 1204-1260, 221 — The Seljukian 
Turks in Asia Minor, 221 — Osman (Othman), 1258-1328, 222 — 
Orcan, 1329-1359, and the Turks, 222 — Aladdin, 222 — The 
Janissaries, 223 — Murad the First, 223 — The Battle of Kossovo, 
1389, 223 — The Timars and the Ziamets, 224 — Bajazet I, 1389- 
1403, 224 — The Battle of Nicopolis, 1396, 225 — The Mongols, 
225 — The Battle of Ancyra (Angora), 1402, 226 — Mohammed I, 
1402-1421, 226 — Murad II, 1421-1451, 226 — Conquests in Europe, 
227 — John Hunyadi, 227 — The Battle of Varna, 1444, 227 — 
Scander-Beg, 228 — Mohammed 11, 1451-1483, 228 — Constantine 
XIII, 1449-1453, 229 — The Siege of Constantinople, 229 — Fall 
of Constantinople, May 29, 1453, 230 — Mohammed and the 
Greeks, 231 — Mohammed II and the Mussulmans, 231 — The 
Conquests of Mohammed II, 232 — His Death, 1483, 233. 

CHAPTER XVI 

The Unity of Spain, 1252-1516 — Ferdinand and Isabella . . 234 

Aragon, 1276 to 1458, 234 — Castile from 1252 to 1454, 234 — 
Navarre, 235 — The Decadence of the Moors of Granada, 235 — 
Portugal, 235 — John II of Aragon, 1397-1479, 235 — Don Carlos 
de Viana, 236 — Henry IV of Castile and Bertrand de la Cueva, 
237 — The Cortes of Avila, 237 — Marriage of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, 237 — Isabella the Catholic, 238 — The Struggle Against 
the Aristocracy, 238 — The Inquisition in Spain, 239 — The Cath- 
olic Kings and the Towns, 239 — Boabdil, 240 — The Conquest of 
Granada, 240 — The Expulsion of the Jews, 241 — The Crusada 
Bull, 241 — The Death of Isabella, 241 — Ferdinand and Philip 
the Handsome, 242 — Ximenes, 242 — The Foreign Policy of 
Ferdinand, 242. 

CHAPTER XVII 

Great Inventions and Discoveries 246 

The Passing of the Middle Ages, 246 — Gunpowder, 246 — 
Paper, 248 — Printing, 248 — Gutenberg, 1400-1468, 249 — The 
First Printed Books, 249 — The Compass, 250 — Prince Henry 
"The Navigator," 1394-1460, 250 — Bartholomew Dias, 1445- 
1500, 251 — The Mission of Covilham, 252 — Vasco da Gama, 
1469-1524, 252 — Da Gama in India, 1498, 252 — Expedition of 
Alvarez Cabrai, 1 500-1 501, 253 — The Second Voyage of Vasco 
da Gama, 253 — The Government of Viceroys, 254 — The Con- 
quests of Albuquerque, 1508-1515, 254 — Camoëns, 255 — The Pre- 
cursors of Columbus, 255 — Christopher Columbus, 256 — Colum- 
bus in Spain, 257 — The Departure of Columbus, 257 — The First 
Voyage, August 3, 1492-March 15, 1493, 258 — The Discovery of 



CONTENTS xî 



America, 259 — The Line of Demarcation, 259 — The Second 
Voyage of Columbus, 259 — Columbus' Third Voyage, 260 — 
Last Voyage and Death of Columbus, 260. 

CHAPTER XVIII 

The Conquest of the New World 262 

The Historical Perspective, 262 — The Spanish Adventurers in 
America, 262 — Ovando and Diego Columbus, 263 — Nunez de 
Balboa, 263 — Amerigo Vespuccio, 264 — John Cabot's Voyages, 
264 — Magellan's Voyage of Circumnavigation, 265 — Valasquez 
in Cuba, 266 — Fernando Cortez, the Conqueror, 267 — Landing 
of the Spaniards in Mexico, 267 — Mexican Civilization, 268 — 
The March of Cortez upon Mexico, 269 — Expedition of Narvaez 
Against Cortez, 269 — The Lamentable Night (Noche Triste), 
June 30, 1520, 270— Siege of Mexico, 1521, 270 — Death of 
Cortez in 1547, 271 — Pizarro in Peru, 272 — Peruvian Civiliza- 
tion and the Incas, 273 — Conquest of Peru, 1532-1533, 274 — 
Death of Pizarro, 1541, 274 — End of the Conquistadors, 275 — 
Organization of the Spanish Conquest, 276 — Las Casas, 276 — 
Results of the Conquest, 277. 

CHAPTER XIX 

The Renaissance in Italy and in Europe 279 

General Character of the Renaissance, 279 — Dante, 1265-1321, 
281 — Petrarch, 1304-1374, 282 — Boccaccio, 1313-1375, 283 — The 
First Italian Historian, 283 — Humanism in the XV Century, 284 
— The Primitives, 285 — Giotto, 1266-1337, 285 — Fra Angelico, 
1387-1455, 286 — The Realists, 286 — Botticelli, 1447-1515, 287 — 
Signorelli, 1441-1523, and Perugino, 1446-1524, 287 — The First 
Venetians, 288 — Sculpture, Architecture, and Engraving in the 
XV Century, 289 — Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527, 290 — Italian 
Prose of the XVI Century, 290 — Italian Comedy, 291 — The 
Italian Poets of the XV and XVI Centuries, 291 — Ariosto, 1474- 
1533, 292 — Tasso, 1544-1595, 292 — Minor Poets, 292 — The Lom- 
bard School, 293 — Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519, 293 — Fra 
Bartolommeo, 1475-1517, and Andrea del Sarto, 1487-1531, 294 — 
Michael Angelo, 1474-1563, 294 — Michael Angelo and Julius II, 
295 — Michael Angelo at Florence, 295 — II Penseroso. Night, 
296 — The Last Judgment, 296 — Raphael, 1483-1520, 297 — 
Raphael at Rome, 297 — The Masterpieces of Raphael, 298 — 
Leo X and Raphael, 299 — Correggio, 1494-1534, 299 — Venice 
and the Venetians, 300 — Titian, 1476-1576, 301 — The Works of 
Titian, 301 — Titian the Pagan Painter and the Painter of His- 
tory, 301 — Veronese, 1528-1588, and Tintoretto, 1518-1594, 302 — 
Other Venetian Artists, 303 — Italian Sculpture, 303 — Italian 
Architecture, 304 — Engraving, Marc Antonio, 1480-1530, 305 — 
Art in Germany, 305 — Albert Durer, 1471-1528, 305 — German 



xii CONTENTS 



Sculpture, 306 — Holbein, 1460-1524, 306 — Lucas Cranach, 1472- 
1553, 307 — Art in the Low Countries, 307 — Decadence in Italy, 
308. 

CHAPTER XX 

Charles V — The Protestant Reformation in Europe — The 

Catholic Counter Reformation, 1519-1563 309 

Germany at the Death of Maximilian, 309 — ^The Knights and 
the Peasants, 309 — Luther's Personality, 310 — Luther's Religious 
Ideas, 311 — The Question of Indulgences, 312 — The Ninety-five 
Theses, 313 — The Leipzig Disputation, 1519, 315 — The Imperial 
Election of 15 19, 315 — Luther's Breach with Rome, 316 — The 
Diet of Worms, 1521, 317 — Luther at Worms, 318 — The Con- 
demnation of Luther, 318 — The Sacramentarians, 319 — The 
Peasants' War, 319 — The Diet of Speyer, 320 — The Protestant 
Princes, 321 — The Diet of 1530, 321 — The Confession of Augs- 
burg, 1530, 322 — The Schmalkaldic War, 323 — The Anabaptists 
of Munster, 323 — John of Leyden, 323 — Luther's Death, 1546, 
324 — Maurice of Saxony, 324 — The Battle of Miihlberg, 325 — 
The Interim of 1548, 325 — The Peace of Augsburg, 1555, 326 — 
The Reformation in Switzerland, 327 — Zwingli, 327 — Evangel- 
ism, 327 — Luther and Zwingli, 328 — The Battle of Kappel, 328 — 
Geneva and Calvin, 329 — Calvins Rule in Geneva, 330 — Other 
German Reformers, 330 — The Reformation in Denmark, 331 — 
The Reformation in Sweden, 331 — Reforms within the Catholic 
Church, 331 — The Catholic Reformers, 332 — Ignatius Loyola, 
1491-1556, 333 — The Jesuits, 333 — The Council of Trent, 334 — 
The Last Popes of the XVI Century, 335 — The Results of the 
Reformation, 337. 



CHAPTER XXI 

The Dutch Struggle for Liberty — Charles V in Spain — ^Philip II 

— The Low Countries, i 500-1 598 338 

Charles V in Spain, 338 — The Revolt of the Towns, 338 — 
The Officials of Charles V in Spain and in Flanders, 339 — The 
Abdication and Death of Charles V, 340 — Succession of Philip 
II, 341 — The Reformation in Spain, 341 — Don Carlos, the Mad 
Prince, 342 — Don Juan of Austria, 1547-1578, 343 — The Battle 
of Lepanto, October 7, 1571, 343 — Exile of Antonio Perez, 344 
— Philip II and the Succession in Portugal, 1581, 344 — Philip II 
the Representative of Catholicism in Europe, 345 — Spanish Gov- 
ernment and the Religious Question in the Netherlands, 345 — 
The "Compromise of the Nobles," 1566, 346 — The "Beggars," 
347 — The Duke of Alva and the Council of Blood, 347 — The 
War Against Spain from 1568 to 1573, 348 — The Pacification 
of Ghent, 1576, 349 — Don Juan of Austria in the Low Countries, 
Ï577"i578, 350 — The Political Union of Utrecht, 1579, 350— 



CONTENTS xiii 



The Assassination of William of Orange, 1584, 351 — Maurice 
of Nassau, 351 — The Economie Situation in the Low Countries, 
352 — The Decadence of Spain, 353 — Judgment upon the Reign 
of Philip II, 353. 

CHAPTER XXII 

Francis I and Henry II, 1515-1559 354 

Youth and Education of Francis I, 354 — The Battle of Mari- 
gnano, 1515, 354 — Treaties with the Swiss and the Pope, 1516, 
356 — The Rivalry of Francis I and Charles V, 357 — The Field 
of the Cloth of Gold, 1520, 358— The First War Between 
Francis and Charles V, 1520-1526, 359 — The Treason of Con- 
stable Bourbon, 1523, 360 — The War in Italy and in Provence, 
361 — The Battle of Pavia, 1525, 361 — The Treaty of Madrid, 
1526, 362 — The Second War with Charles V, 1526-1529, 363 — 
The Sack of Rome, 363 — The Treaty of Cambrai, 1529, 364 — 
The New Foreign Policy of Francis I, 365 — The Third War 
with Charles V, 1536-1538, 366 — The Fourth War, 1542-1544, 
367 — The Treaties of Crespy, 1544, and of Ardres, 1546, 367 — 
The Death of Francis I, 1547, 368 — Henry II, 1547-1559, 368 — 
The Factions of the Court, 368 — First Years of Henry II, 369 — 
Henry's War Against Charles V, 369 — Abdication of Charles V, 
I555> 370— The War with Philip II, 371 — The Treaty of Cateau- 
Cambrésis, 1559, 372 — Results of the Italian Wars, 372 — The 
Death of Henry II, 1559, 373. 

CHAPTER XXIII 

Social and Political France in the First Half of the XVI 

Century 374 

The Absolute Monarchy, 374 — The Court of the King, 375 — 
The Régime of Women, 376 — The Life of the Nobles at Court, 
377 — The Châteaux, 378 — The Government under the Great 
Officers of the Crown, 379 — The Councils, 381 — The Governors 
and Intendants, 382 — The Estates General, 383 — The Parle- 
ment, 383 — The Presidencies, and the Sale of Offices, 384 — The 
Concordat of 1516, 385 — The Opposition to the Absolute Mon- 
archy, 386 — The Finances of the Realm, 387 — The State of the 
Army. The Cavalry, 387— The Infantry, 388— The Artillery, 
389 — The Marine, 390 — The Material Prosperity of France, 
391 — Bernard Palissy, 393 — Commerce, 394 — Industry, 395. 

CHAPTER XXIV 

The Reformation in France, 151 5 to 1598 397 

The Reformation under Francis I, 397 — ^The Reformation 
under Henry II, 398 — The Reign of Francis II, 1559-1560, 399 — 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Conspiracy of Amboise Against Francis II, 400 — The 
Reign of Charles IX, 1560-1574, 400 — The Estates at Orléans, 
and at Pontoise, 1560-1561, 401 — The Colloquy of Poissy, 1561, 
402 — The Beginning of the Religious Wars, 403 — The First 
Civil War, 1562-1563, 404 — The Interview at Bayonne, 1565, 
405 — Ordinance of Moulins, 405 — The Second Civil War, 1567- 
1568, 405 — The Third Civil War, 1568-1570, 406 — Coligny's 
Projects, 407 — The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, August 24, 
1572, 408 — The Fourth Civil War, 1572-1574, 409 — The Reign of 
Henry III, 1574-1589, 410 — The Fifth Civil War, 1575-1576, 
410 — The Catholic League, 1576, 411 — The Sixth Civil War, 
1576-1577, 413 — The Seventh Civil War, 1580-1581, 413 — Claim 
of Henry of Bourbon, 413 — The Eighth Civil War, 1586-1589, 
414 — The Second Estates General at Blois, 1588, 415 — The 
Siege of Paris. Assassination of Henry III, 1589, 416 — The Re- 
sults of the Religious Wars, 416. 

CHAPTER XXV 

Henry IV to the Edict of Nantes, 1598 419 

The Youth of Henry IV, 419 — Henry's Accession, 1589, 420 — 
Henry's Struggle for the Crown, 1589-1590, 421 — The Battle of 
Ivry, 1590, 423 — The Siege of Paris, 1590, 423 — The Excesses 
of the League, 425 — The Satire " Ménipée," 425 — The Abjura- 
tion of Henry IV, 1593, 427 — Henry IV Master of France, 428 
— War Against the Spanish, 1595-1598, 430 — Peace of Vervins, 
1598, 431 — The Edict of Nantes, 1598, 431. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

The Administration of Henry IV 433 

France in 1598, 433 — Sully, 434 — The Government of 
Henry IV, 435 — Classes of Society, 436 — Financial Reforms, 
437 — Agriculture, 439 — Industries, 44CH— Commerce and the 
Canals, 441 — The Army, 442. 

CHAPTER XXVII 

Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe in the XVI Century . 444 

General Conditions, 444 — Switzerland, 444 — The Emperors, 
1555-1598, 444 — The Religious Question in Germany, 1555-1598, 
445 — The Turks. The Predecessors of Solyman, 1481-1520, 446 
— Solyman the Magnificent, 1 520-1 566. The Siege of Rhodes, 
446 — Solyman in Hungary, 1526-1566, 446 — Turkish Diplomacy 
in the XVI Century, 447 — The Family of Solyman, 448 — Soly- 
man's Successors, 448 — Denmark, 1340-1439, 449 — The Union 
of Calmar, 449 — German Kings in Denmark. Christian II, 



CONTENTS XV 



143 5-1 5 59, 450 — Denmark to the End of the XVI Century. The 
Holstein Dynasty, 451 — Sweden Prior to Gustavus Vasa, 452 — 
Gustavus Vasa, 1533-1560, 452 — The Successors of Gustavus 
Vasa, 1560-1598, 453 — Russia in the XIV and XV Centuries, 454 
— The Lithuanians and the Poles, 454 — Ivan III, the Great, 
1462-1505, 455 — Ivan IV, the Terrible, 1533-1584, 455 — The 
" Thousand " and the Pretorian Militia, 456 — The Successors 
of Ivan the Terrible, 457 — Russia in the XVI Century, 457 — 
The Religious Spirit and Poetry, 458 — Foreigners in Russia, 
458 — Conclusion, 459. 



CHAPTER I 

GENERAL SURVEY OF EUROPE AT THE END OF 
THE Xni CENTURY 

1. Europe from 1270 to 1598. — During the period between 
1270 and 1598 there vanished from the European mind forever 
the dream of that political unity which the recollection of an- 
tiquity had kept alive. The German Empire within the same 
time relaxed its hold upon Italy, Switzerland, the Low Countries, 
Provence, and Franche-Comté; and, by making the imperial 
crown hereditary in the house of Hapsburg, permitted the forma- 
tion in the center of Europe of a group of independent states. 
Italy, cut in two by the Papal States, remained distracted and 
exposed to the aggression of the foreigner, while France drove the 
English out of her territory, and rounded out her natural bound- 
aries at the expense of the Empire and of Spain. Spain, too, lost 
the Netherlands abroad, and expelled the Moors at home. Eng- 
land, forced from the continent, extended her dominion over 
Scotland and Ireland. The Scandinavian states began to exert in 
European affairs an influence which was to prove transitory. A 
new Mussulman invasion, that of the Turks, during the XV cen- 
tury, resulted in establishing a permanent military power upon the 
ruins of the Greek Empire, and finally, the PolisH Slavs formed a 
state as brilliant as it was transient, while the Russian Slavs, 
reserved for a greater destiny, gradually became conscious of their 
own national existence. 

The idea of political unity had been only a dream; but the 
triumphs of the Papacy during the XII and XIII centuries had 
almost made actual the idea of religious unity. Yet the heresies 
of the XIV and XV centuries, and the Protestant Reformation 
of the XVI, destroyed it too, forever. Coincident with these 
changes, and with the religious agitation, came the intellectual 
Renaissance, which was favored by the discovery of the art of 



2 THE END OF THE XHI CENTURY 

printing, which in its turn resulted in the advancement of thought, 
of art, and of science. Finally the great maritime explorations 
which opened a New World to the activity of Europe completed 
the transformation which marks the. period we are to study. 

2. The Great Interregnum. — In 1250, the last of the great 
Swabian emperors, Frederick H, had just died, broken by do- 
mestic disappointment, and by his long struggle with the Papacy. 
Too much occupied in Italy, he had allowed the strong German 
vassals, the Guelfs of Hanover, the Ascanians of Saxony and 
Brandenburg, the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria, and the Przemyslids of 
Bohemia, to increase their independence daily. His successor, 
Conrad IV, ruled scarcely four years, and never bore the title of 
Emperor. His son, Conradin, endeavored to maintain himself in 
Italy with the support of Manfred, the most energetic of the sons 
of Frederick II, but, beaten by Charles of Anjou, Conradin was 
captured and put to death. 

During this time in Germany one titular emperor succeeded 
another in rapid succession. First it was William of Holland, 
who, like his predecessor the anti-king Henry Raspe, was a priest's 
king. Innocent IV supported him against Frederick II, and he 
bore until his death the royal titb without ever being able either 
to exercise any serious authority or to check the ever-growing 
anarchy. Then Alphonso X of Castile was chosen king by a part 
of the electors, but lie never came to Germany at all. At the 
same time another faction elected Richard of Cornwall, brother 
of King Henry III of England. He kept the name of King of 
the Romans until 1272, but could obtain even the appearance of 
royal authority only by the use of his money. At his death Ger- 
man feudalism itself, although it had profited by this long absence 
of any government, which was called the Great Interregnum, felt 
the need of a more stable authoritj^ 

3. The Electors. — The National Diet {Curia Generalis) 
rendered little or no help to the emperor in his efforts to rule 
in Germany, but the great vassals made use of this assembly to 
increase each his own influence, especially at the time of an imperial 
election. From the end of the XII century a certain number of 
them had exercised the right of a primary vote, a practice which 
enabled these few to influence an election in which theoretically all 
the princes of Germany participated. 



THE PRINCES, LAY AND ECCLESIASTICAL 3 

The origin of the electoral college itself is somewhat obscure. 
It is mentioned in the middle of the XII century, but its composi- 
tion at that time is not altogether clear. It seems to have been 
first definitely described in a letter of Pope Urban IV, in 1263, in 
which he says that by immemorial custom the right of choosing 
the Roman king belonged to seven persons. " Of these seven, 
three, the archbishops of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne, pastors 
of the richest transalpine sees, represented the German Church; 
the other four ought, according to the ancient constitution, to have 
been the dukes of the four nations, the Franks, the Swabians, the 
Saxons, and the Bavarians, to whom had also belonged the four 
great offices of the imperial household. But of these dukedoms the 
first two named were now extinct, and their place and power in 
the state, as well as the household offices they had held, had de- 
scended upon two principalities of more recent origin, those namely 
of the Palatinate of the Rhine and the Margraviate of Branden- 
burg " (Bryce). The duke of Saxony alone retained his old 
position. In spite of the determining part played by these seven 
personages in the imperial elections, however, the lawful method 
of electing the ennperor was not clear until it was defined by the 
Golden Bull in 1356. 

4. The Princes, Lay and Ecclesiastical. — Yet it was not 
to these quasi-independent princes alone that the territorial sov- 
ereignty in Germany belonged. The houses of Lorraine, Olden- 
burg-Holstein, Wurtemberg, Baden, and Nassau exercised the 
most complete sovereignty in their own domains. In addition to 
these great nobles, the small nobility, among whom are to be 
counted the governors of fortified places {burgraves), availed 
themselves of this time of confusion to increase their own inde- 
pendence, and associations of nobles were formed to maintain these 
usurpations. Chief among these were the burgraviates of Rothen- 
burg, of Freiburg in Breisgau, and of Wetterau, near Frankfort, 
together with the burgraviate of Nuremberg, which was the 
original seat of the Hohenzollern rulers of Prussia. Frequently, 
too, during the anarchy of the Great Interregnum the burgraves 
for their own profit turned their hands against their neighbors, 
the towns and the peasants. 

To this feudal laity must be added the feudal churchmen, 
equally keen for independence. Besides the three great arch- 



4 THE END OF THE XHI CENTURY 

bishoprics already mentioned, those of Bremen and Magdeburg, 
the bishoprics of Constance, Strasburg, Halberstadt, Augsburg, and 
Miinster, the great abbeys of Fulda, Hersfeld, and Saint Gall, to 
confine ourselves to the most powerful ecclesiastical sovereignties 
only, by the very extent of their territories, were veritable prin- 
cipalities. 

5. The Towns. — Yet it must not be thought that the feudal 
princes of Germany could with impunity prey upon the towns 
and the country. The large cities had remained strong enough since 
the Great Interregnum to make for themselves, if not a legal posi- 
tion, at least a definite place in the Diet of the Empire. The 
free imperial and ecclesiastical towns were numerous. Their 
sovereignty rarely extended beyond their outskirts, to be sure, but 
cities like Frankfort-on-the-Main, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, 
Lubeck, and Strasburg in their commerce and in the wealth of 
their citizens were actual powers, while their confederations, 
formed to secure the trade routes by land and by water {Burg- 
frieden), often succeeded in keeping open the highways of com- 
merce. The peasants' lot was most unhappy except in the Forest 
Cantons of Switzerland, where already since the opening of 
the XHI century they had begun to carry on war against 
their German masters. Nevertheless, everywhere in the basin 
of the Rhine and the Moselle the custom of hereditary hold- 
ings gave to the free cultivator of the soil some of the rights of 
property. 

6. The Hansa. — The towns and the tradespeople, however, 
were not long content to band themselves together for the sole 
purpose of defending their caravans and their transports on the 
rivers. In the north and west of Germany, they imposed upon 
themselves common taxes, at least Hamburg and Lubeck did from 
the XIII century, and these taxes were intended to create resources 
for the protection and the development of the commerce of the 
allied towns. 

Little by little, the greater part of the towns of the Rhine, the 
Baltic and the Elbe imitated this plan. Then all the individual 
Kansas united; and at the beginning of the Great Interregnum, 
when Bremen and Cologne joined the commercial league, the 
Great Hansa, although it was not to be legally organized until 
the end of the XIV century, found itself sufficiently well disci- 



THE PAPACY 5 

plined and powerful to extend its operations and to guard the 
security of the sea in all the north of Europe. 

7. Italy. — From this time on, the German influence in Italy 
was seriously menaced. The imperial party still sought support in 
each of the Ghibelline towns, while the Guelfs at the same time 
seemed devoted to the cause of the Papacy and Italian independ- 
ence; but very often Guelf and Ghibelline were distinguished the 
one from the other by their hatreds and by their local ambitions 
only. Thus in the Milanais, although the Visconti in 1277 ob- 
tained perpetual overlordship and at the end of the XIII century 
Matteo Visconti solicited the imperial investiture, the Ghibel- 
line leaders of Milan displayed scant loyalty to their suzerain. 
Genoa, lord of Corsica, which had been taken away from Pisa, 
completely occupied with the task of monopolizing the commerce 
with Constantinople, even at the expense of the Latin Christians, 
was Guelf and Italian in nothing but name, while Venice, whose 
commerce dominated the Grecian Archipelago, the Black Sea, and 
the eastern Mediterranean ocean, continued to lead an independ- 
ent existence. At the end of the XIII century, and at the be- 
ginning of the century following, she bestowed on her hereditary 
patricians the highest judicial functions, seats in the Grand Coun- 
cil, and confided to the mysterious Council of Ten the repression 
of any democratic manifestation. 

Following closely upon the death of Frederick II, Tuscany 
and Florence awoke to the consciousness of national life, and 
Innocent IV, hearing with ferocious joy of the death of this his 
great enemy, made haste to lend aid there to the Guelfs against the 
Ghibellines. From that struggle proceeded the unique constitu- 
tion of Florence. Later, Clement IV, pursuing the work of venge- 
ance of the Holy See, offered to the brother of Saint Louis 
the realm of Naples and of Sicily. Conqueror of Manfred at 
Benevento and of Conradin at Tagliacozzo, as implacable as he 
was pious, Charles of Anjou had executed without trial the young 
German prince, Conradin, together with his young cousin, Fred- 
erick of Babenberg, Duke of Austria, whose chief fault had been 
that he defended his patrimony against the nominee of the Papacy. 

8. The Papacy. — The Papacy was still animated by the spirit 
of Innocent III and of Innocent IV. Urban VI, the French 
Clement IV, and Gregory X, in the name of the universal Church, 



6 THE END OF THE XHI CENTURY 

still assumed the right to dispose of the crowns of Christendom. 
Until Gregory X intervened in the imperial election in Germany 
in 1272, the popes had thought to rule in Rome whether over the 
great patrician families, such as the Colonna, or the Orsini, or 
over the last partisans of the republican forms of government. 
As direct suzerains of the Romagna and the Marches, they dreamed 
of allowing no other power in the rest of Italy save the Guelf 
party; and the house of Anjou, owing to the exalted piety of its 
chief, seemed to promise to the sovereign pontiffs a pliant instru- 
ment for the execution of their plans. 

9. France. — Yet if the popes found their political plans op- 
posed to the municipal spirit and the idea of local independence 
even in Italy, they found still more opposition when brought face 
to face with the two most compact powers in western Europe, 
France and England. Upon the death of Saint Louis, to make 
use of an expression of Joinville, " the realm of France had so 
prospered under the happy management there maintained, that the 
domain, the taxes, the income, and the revenues of the king in- 
creased every year by half." The successor of Louis IX exercised 
a well-established authority in the Ile-de-France, Normandy, 
Picardy, Anjou, and Maine; to these he was on the point of adding 
Poitou, and the south of France ; and his suzerainty over Brittany 
was undisputed. Flanders and Lorraine submitted in part to his 
influence, and finally a French prince, the possessor of Provence, 
was steadily encroaching upon the imperial territory. 

10. England. — England, for a long time after the Norman 
Conquest, had maintained close relations with the Holy See; but 
if the religious sentiment there was profound, there remained also 
a profound depth of independence in the Anglo-Saxon character. 
In the midst of the troubles of the XIII century, England, be- 
cause of the development of her representative system of govern- 
ment, took a place somewhat apart from the European States, 
and the Parliament became a regular and necessary organ of the 
government. Edward I determined to strengthen his government, 
and relied upon the support of the barons and the representatives 
of the counties and the towns. He had prominently in his mind 
the conquest of Ireland, begun in the XII century; the reduction 
of Wales, which had resisted the pretensions of the English since 
the time of Henry III; and finally he cast envious glances upon 



SCANDINAVIA 7 

Scotland, where the death of Alexander III had produced a state 
of anarchy, prolonged by the turbulent nobility of the clans. It 
must be said that this state of affairs was full of temptation for 
the powerful neighbors of Scotland, who for a long time had 
been endeavoring to secure a foothold in the Lowlands. The only 
evidence displayed by Edward I, the first real king of England, 
that he recalled the land of his forefathers was in the passionate 
obstinacy with which he clung to the possession of Guienne; a 
mistaken policy which the entire nation shared during two cen- 
turies. 

11. Spain and Portugal. — The two nations in the south- 
west of Europe were in a situation entirely different from that 
of England and France. Compelled from the first by the Mussul- 
man expansion to submit to the domination of the Moors and 
the Arabs, Spain and Portugal had regained the land only step by 
step, and that by individual effort. After the battle of Las Navas 
de Tolosa in 12 12, the Christians of the peninsula had rarely 
acted together. Thus, at the end of the XIII century, in spite 
of the checks which the Mussulmans had received in the realm of 
Granada, and in Algarve, a definite deliverance was retarded by 
the opposed interests of the four Catholic powers : Navarre, soon to 
become French ; Aragon, whose great king, James the Conqueror, 
acquired the Balearic Islands and Valencia (1223-1276) ; Castile, 
which, in spite of internal difficulties, extended its boundaries to 
the Xeres, under Alphonso (X) the Wise ( 1252-1284), and 
finally Portugal, which the house of Burgundy took away from the 
Mussulmans piece by piece. 

12. Scandinavia. — At the close of the XIII century and the 
opening of the XIV century the two Scandinavian peninsulas 
seemed to approach that unity which was still so remote from the 
Iberian peninsula. In Denmark, after Waldemar (II) the Vic- 
torious, the XIII century drew to an uneventful close; but 
Waldemar IV prepared a union of Denmark and Sweden, which 
was governed by the Folkungs. The purpose of this union was 
rather to dominate the great peninsula than to satisfy any aspira- 
tions for a common nationality felt by the three Scandinavian 
peoples. The daughter of Waldemar IV, the great Margaret, 
ruler of Norway, as the heiress of her husband, Haakon VII, 
profited by the distracted condition of the Folkungs to conquer 



8 THE END OF THE XHI CENTURY 

Sweden. By the celebrated Union of Calmar (1397) she united 
the three states: but she found the conditions imposed upon the 
vanquished Swedes too lenient, and from the time of the reign 
of her successor, Eric IX of Pomerania, the hostile attitude of 
Denmark toward Sweden prepared the way for a separation which 
the XV century accentuated and which the XVI century made 
permanent. 

13. The Orient. — The Greek empire of the East, at the other 
extremity of Europe, because of the religious schism, its traditions 
of a glorious past and its memory of remote antiquity, was articu- 
lated with the European world even less than Scandinavia. John 
Lascaris and Michael Paleologus had just driven the Latin Chris- 
tians from Constantinople and freed the Greek Empire from de- 
pendence upon the Franks, but, almost at the same time, the Turks 
of Asia Minor were forming themselves into a nation under Osman, 
and were preparing their migration towards the Sea of Marmora 
and the Hellespont. 

14. The Slavs. — Finally, to the extreme east of Germany, 
there was an Orient which seemed even more remote than Con- 
stantinople, by its customs, its ideas, and by its general aspect. 
This was the Slavic world. Catholic since the X century, already 
accustomed to long interregnums and to periods of extended an- 
archy, although masters of the immense territory of Lithuania 
(Wilna, Smolensk, Kiev), and although touching Moldavia on the 
south, in spite of their intrepid courage and the extension of their 
territory upon the side of Russia by their relations with Lithuania, 
the Slavs of Poland were already struck with impotency, and 
they had to leave to the German Order of the Sword the task 
of converting their Slavic brethren of Prussia, Courland, Livonia, 
and Esthonia. Towards the close of the Crusades, the Teutonic 
Order entered Europe and established itself in the Orient with 
the Knights of the Sword. Their Grand Masters, heirs of Her- 
mann of Salza (1220), carried forward their propaganda and 
established their commerce at Koenigsberg, Memel, and Riga, and 
left the Poles only the narrow outlet at Danzig to maintain their 
contact with the Occident. 

The Russian Slavs were still more remote from Europe; Chris- 
tians of the Greek rite, driven already beyond the Dnieper in the 
XIV and XV centuries, in spite of the exploits of their national 



CONCLUSION 9 

hero, Dmitri Donski, the conqueror of the Tartars at the Don 
in 1380, and threatened by the Mongols, they were divided at the 
beginning of the XV century between the merchant republic of 
Novgorod and the numerous principalities established by the de- 
scendants of the Scandinavian conquerors. Russia did not emerge 
from this chaos and did not assume a national form before 1425, 
when the grand dukes of Moscow began to annex the Russian 
lands around them. 

15. Conclusion. — Such in general was the situation of the 
European peoples toward the end of the XIII and at the opening 
of the XIV century. It will be necessary to recall this situation 
constantly if we are to follow the progress, more or less gradual, 
of the nations, and if we are to understand the changes in the 
social organization of Europe which, excepting in England, Italy, 
and in the two republics of Switzerland and Holland, begin to 
move rapidly toward monarchical absolutism and centralization. 
It will be necessary to compare the universal Church of the XIII 
century with Europe of 1600 with its national churches and 
numerous dissenting sects. To the scholasticism of the Middle 
Ages, to its naive artistic and intellectual development, charming 
and profound even, but too often timid and narrow, it will be 
necessary to oppose the intoxication of knowing everything which 
seized the men of the Renaissance, and the artistic expansion of 
the XV and XVI centuries. Finally it will be enough to compare 
the geography of Saint Louis' master, Vincent of Beauvais, with a 
map of the world in the year 1600. By means of such com- 
parisons only, can we estimate the importance of these three 
centuries, within which there develops a great religious revolution 
in the Protestant Reformation, a great intellectual revolution in 
the Renaissance, and a great economic revolution in the discovery 
of the New World. 



CHAPTER II 

THE AGGRESSIVE POLICY OF THE FRENCH 
MONARCHY (1270-1328) 

1. The Government of Philip III, the Bold (1270-1285). 

— The profound transformation of France and of the French 
monarchy which the XIV century ushered in was hardly under 
way before the reign of Philip IV, the Fair. As for Philip III, 
his reign is essentially a continuation and a conclusion of the 
reign of his father. Saint Louis. This eldest son of Louis IX, 
whom his contemporaries called the Bold, was a prince lacking 
personal force and without originality. As a result of his educa- 
tion he devoted himself to religious observances and to the prac- 
tices of chivalry and the feudal customs of his time; but he kept 
the old counselors of Saint Louis, and maintained his policy with 
a moderation which assured its success. Under his reign royalty 
continued its progress in a series of struggles against the vassals: 
(i) by the strictest application of the law of amortizement; (2) 
by the restriction of ecclesiastical privileges; (3) by the establish- 
ment of the law of frank-fief; (4) by the diminution of the liber- 
ties of the communes; (5) by a greater and greater circulation of 
the royal money; and (6) by an unremitting legislative and ad- 
ministrative activity. 

Although the reign of Philip III was not so brilliant as that of 
Philip Augustus, it none the less saw many and important terri- 
tories added to the royal domain. In 1271, Alphonse of Poitiers, 
brother of Saint Louis, and his wife, Countess Jeanne, died with- 
out children. The king, by virtue of the treaty of Meaux, im- 
mediately took possession of the immense estates of his uncle. 
This was a prodigious increase of land for the Capetian monarchy, 
whose territory now extended from the Mediterranean to the 
Channel. Moreover, the able administration of the late count of 
Poitiers by its energetic and intelligent centralization of power 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS n 

had rendered French provinces which until then had been hostile 
to the Capetian monarchy. Philip III also laid hands upon the 
county of Valois, appanage of his brother Tristan, who died dur- 
ing the Crusade, upon Perche, and the county of Alencon, which 
the king annexed after the death of his brother, Pierre d'Alencon, 
fifth son of Saint Louis (1283). Finally, he planned the way for 
new acquisitions by betrothing to his own son Philip the Princess 
Joanna, heiress of the counties of Champagne and Brie and the 
kingdom of Navarre. 

2. Wars with Castile and Aragon. — In thus extending his 
influence to the slopes of the Pyrenees, the king of France could 
not resist the temptation to interfere in Spain, and in 1276 he 
organized an expedition which had as its definite result the consum- 
mation of the marriage of his son with the Princess Joanna. 
But Philip III was completely eclipsed by his uncle, Charles of 
Anjou, the true head of French chivalry. When he became king 
of Naples, after the defeat of Manfred and of Conradin, Charles' 
position was a dominant one in Italy. Wishing, furthermore, to 
reign over the Mediterranean, he had prepared an expedition 
against the Paleologi of Constantinople; but he had numerous 
enemies — among others the Papacy, which began to be apprehensive 
as to the ambitions of the all-powerful Capetian, and the Sicilians, 
who were oppressed by his harsh and cruel domination. The latter 
turned for aid to the king of Aragon, the valiant Peter III, who 
had married the daughter of Manfred, and was gathering at his 
court all the proscribed Italians. Among these refugees was a 
Calabrian doctor, John of Procida, who worked untiringly for 
the independence of Sicily. The Sicilians themselves, however, 
were actuated mainly by a feeling of profound hatred and a desire 
for vengeance, which the tyranny of the French had provoked. 

3. The Sicilian Vespers. — The incident from which the war 
actually arose occurred at Palermo, when an insult offered by a 
French soldier to a young girl provoked a horrible massacre of 
foreigners. As the bells were sounding for vespers the French 
were murdered in Palermo. Successively at Messina and then 
throughout the whole island the slaughter continued, and from the 
incident at Palermo the entire movement took the name of the 
Sicilian Vespers (March 31, 1282). 

Charles of Anjou aroused himself at once and swore venge- 



12 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

ance. He had already laid siege to Messina, when King Peter 
of Aragon arrived with help for the rebels, had himself crowned 
king of Sicily, and burned the French fleet off the promontory of 
Reggio. In vain Pope Martin IV, who was devoted to the 
Capetians, preached a crusade against Peter. Chagrined when 
Roger of Loria crushed Charles the Cripple in a great battle 
before Naples (1284), Charles of Anjou scarcely survived this 
disaster to his son and died soon after at Foggia. 

Philip the Bold was no more fortunate on the side of Spain. 
Although he crossed the Pyrenees and took possession of the 
Garonne, he was compelled to beat a retreat, and died of fever 
at Perpignan in 1285. 

4. Character of the Reign of Philip IV, the Fair (1285- 
1314). — The crown passed to his eldest son, Philip IV, called 
The Fair. Philip Augustus and Saint Louis had considerably 
increased the power of the crown. They had given to it, the one, 
a very important increase in territory; the other, a moral ascend- 
ency which sanctified, as it were, the principle of authority; both, 
a policy more and more aggressive towards the nobility, the 
clergy, and the entire nation. It was Philip the Fair who had 
to complete their work in assuring to the crown what Beauma- 
noir calls '' the sovereign guardianship of the realm." 

During his entire reign the king never ceased his efforts along 
these lines: (i) to give to France her natural boundaries; (2) 
to undermine feudalism; (3) to accomplish the separation of the 
secular power from the religious power; (4) to insure justice; and 
(5) to give to the crown regular military and financial resources. 
The task was a formidable one, but Philip the Fair pursued it 
with zeal, intelligence, and tenacity. Necessary as this work was, 
however, it did not fail to furnish frequent examples of injustice. 
With him the Middle Ages really came to a close, and with the 
modern royalty there began what Michelet calls " the grand era 
of civil order in France." To appreciate the work of Philip the 
Fair, which was so remarkable for its durability and its unity, it 
will be desirable to follow successively his domestic policy, his 
religious policy, his foreign policy, and his administration. 

5. The Domestic Policy. — The Capetian monarchy by this 
time was not merely a feudal government ; the king was not only 
suzerain, but he was beginning to be a sovereign. Nevertheless, 



THE DOMESTIC POLICY 13 

it was his position as a landed proprietor which above all else 
constituted his true power and which had permitted him to over- 
throw the Carolingian dynasty. The Capetians never laid aside 
this principle, and they made continual efforts to increase their 
territory. Such had been the policy of Philip Augustus; such as 
well was the policy of Philip the Fair. 

Upon his accession to power he controlled the territory of 
Champagne, Brie, the county of Bar, and Navarre, by right of 
his wife, but it was not until 1304 that the death of Joanna 
caused these vast possessions to pass to their eldest son, Louis 
the Quarrelsome, who took the title of King of Navarre. In 
1289, Philip had put an end to the differences which had existed 
for several years between the crowns of France and England in 
regard to eastern Guienne, and Quercy was joined to the French 
royal territory in return for an income of three thousand livres, 
promised to England but not paid. By the treaty of Vincennes, 
Otto of Burgundy promised to the king the hand of his heiress 
for one of his sons, and in return for the payment of a life annuity 
Philip obtained the immediate enjoyment of this very desirable 
province. He bought from the count of Perigord the vicomte of 
Lomagne and Auvillars, and later upon the death of Hugh the 
Brown, joined to the royal domain, by indemnifying the holders, 
the counties of La Marche and of Angouleme. In Flanders, too, 
he made important acquisitions: Lille, Douai, and Bethune, where 
he also confiscated Tournai and the seigneury of Mortagne. 
Furthermore, his contracts of joint possession, by which a suzer- 
ain agreed to cede to the king a part of his feudal rights, enabled 
the king to insinuate his authority into all the provinces. Thus 
the royal territory increased little by little. 

Unhappily the system of appanages, while facilitating the ad- 
ministration of the vast royal estates by rendering their obedience 
more assured, created a kind of princely feudalism which in a 
degree replaced the ancient dynasties of the feudal barons. An 
appanage was the allotment of privileges or lands made by a 
sovereign, usually to his sons, for their dignity and support. 
In pursuance of this system Philip gave to Charles of Valois, his 
brother, Anjou, Maine, Perche, and the county of Alençon ; to 
his son Louis, Gien, Ferte-Alais, Etampes, Dourdan, and Meulan ; 
to his son Charles, La Marche; to his son Philip, Poitou. He 



14 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

understood, at least, the danger of these alienations, and sought to 
counteract their decentralizing effect by establishing the prin- 
ciple of the reversion of the appanages to the crown in case of the 
extinction of the male line. 

6. Progress of Royalty. — To this material progress of the 
crown, represented by the accession of a territory which com- 
prises fifty-nine of what are now modern departments of France, 
there corresponded a moral progress which was represented by 
an extension of the legislative power and by the weakening 
of feudalism. As early as the reign of Philip HI, Beaumanoir 
had said " by virtue of his title of ' General Guardian of the 
Realm,' the king has the right to make general laws, or such regu- 
lations as seem to him necessary for the common good." This 
right was as yet a theory of the lawyers only ; but it soon be- 
came a reality. 

The King's Council, separated henceforth from the Parlement 
and the Chamber of Accounts, had legislative functions, was re- 
sponsible for regulating the coinage, and enacted sumptuary laws. 
This extension of the legislative power of the crown was greatly 
facilitated, too, by the spread of the principles of the Roman Law 
in the northern and central parts of France. At Orléans, where 
the Digest was expounded in French, law students were drilled 
upon the maxim drawn from the Roman Law that " what is 
pleasing to the Prince has the force of law, just as if the whole 
people had given all its power and sanction to the law which the 
king issues." While the crown was thus establishing its legislative 
authority, it was at the same time limiting the right of justice 
of the nobles by compelling the great vassals to recognize the 
supremacy of the king's courts. This was secured by declaring, 
formally, that decisions emanating from the feudal tribunals of the 
barons might be reviewed by the Parlement, a decision of very 
great importance since the royal courts, at a later time, were 
entirely substituted for the feudal courts of the nobles. 

7. The Lawyers and Royal Justice. — In the war which 
he continued to make upon feudalism, Philip drew loyal and in- 
telligent support from a class of men who henceforth play a great 
rôle in French history, the lawyers. These indefatigable collabo- 
rators of the crown, the " cruel demolishers of the Middle Ages " 
as Michelet calls them, were responsible for forming the central- 



THE ESTATES GENERAL 15 

ized government. The lawyers and the king neglected nothing in 
order to assure the triumph of the crown. 

The Parlement, where they little by little supplanted the barons, 
became the supreme tribunal. The great feudal lords were judged 
there, and their vassals had the right of appealing to it in case 
of denial of justice. The lawyers designedly extended its power 
beyond royal cases, that is to say, from crimes or offenses the 
cognizance of which was reserved to the magistrates of the king, 
that is, murder, rape, homicide, treason, etc., to everything that 
could be considered as an attack upon the public safety. 

8. The Diminishing Feudalism. — The right of private war- 
fare was one of the prerogatives most dear to that turbulent and 
warlike aristocracy. This monstrous right was now more and 
more restricted. The agents of Philip the Fair are seen at every 
turn imposing upon the barons truces and agreements, and the 
royal ordinances, in time, proscribed absolutely wars, homi- 
cides, and aggressions upon the peasants. In a command to the 
bailiff of Sens,^ the king went so far as to order his agent, in case 
the seigneurs continue their private wars, to assemble " all faithful 
and loyal citizens, all towns and universities, which he is able to 
press into service," and to proceed against the barons. In this 
regulation the carrying of arms is forbidden, tournaments are 
prohibited, and the judicial duel so surrounded with formalities 
and precautions as to render it legally almost impossible. While 
the king attacked feudalism, in its independence he attacked its 
honor also by opening its ranks to the townspeople and to the 
lawyers, in spite of the bitter complaint of the nobles. Thus there 
was developed the nobility of the law, a body which the old 
feudal aristocracy despised, but which was to exert so great an 
influence in the progress of the royal power in France. The king 
surrounded himself with lawyers; and consulted no one but law- 
yers. Clearly the reign of the " common townspeople " had 
begun. 

9. The Estates General. — These townspeople gathered round 

the king in the Estates General. There has been a great deal 

of discussion upon the origin of these estates. Inasmuch as the 

^ There is no satisfactory English equivalent for the French word bailli. 
It has been translated throughout the text as bailiff, although the func- 
tions of the office of the bailli are very similar to those of the English 
sheriff. — Ed. 



i6 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

chronicles of the time speak of them very little and even then 
without seeming to attach a great deal of importance to their 
meetings, some historians have felt authorized to deny altogether 
the existence of the Estates under Philip the Fair. Others, on 
the contrary, observing the slight emphasis which has been laid on 
these assemblies, have come to the conclusion that they were by 
no means a novelty. The fact is that the Estates of 1302 were 
not a true innovation, for in a sense they were a kind of feudal 
assembly which often had been called together before the reign of 
Philip the Fair. If the townspeople were summoned there, it 
was a result of the entry of the towns into the feudal system; 
for the towns {villes de bourgeoisie) had already become true 
feudal personages. It was quite natural, therefore, to have them 
figure in the feudal assemblies, inasmuch as the Estates of the XIV 
century were nothing but assemblies of vassals. There had been 
already in 1294 ^^ assembly of the bishops, barons, and deputies 
of the towns {bonnes villes) which deserved the title of Estates 
General, but inasmuch as it is not clearly known what that assem- 
bly did, it is rather the assembly of 1302 which merits the name 
of the first Estates General. 

In the meeting of 1302 there was taken into account the neces- 
sity for having the moral support of the whole nation behind 
Philip the Fair in his struggle with the Holy See. Boniface VIII 
had just hurled against him the bull. Ausculta fili; and to this 
pontifical bull Philip wished to oppose some sort of lay and national 
proclamation. It is for this reason that he asked the approbation 
of the three orders. The Third Estate, beyond giving this 
assent, played quite a modest part in the assembly. In 1303, 
there met a new gathering which has sometimes been taken for 
the Estates General. In reality, it was nothing but a somewhat 
more numerous assembly of prelates and barons, who decided upon 
an appeal to a future Church Council. The second Estates Gen- 
eral met at Tours in 1308, and it was occupied with obtaining the 
condemnation of the Knights Templar. The last which met under 
Philip the Fair was that of 13 14, called together in order to 
obtain subsidies. 

It is wrong, therefore, to regard Philip the Fair as the creator 
of the Estates General. As a matter of fact, he did not under- 
stand the importance of these meetings any more than his con- 



PHILIP THE FAIR AND BONIFACE VIII 17 

temporaries did. The part which the Estates took in the government 
was more or less nominal, and the king did not call them together 
except to get subsidies and to obtain their moral support in his 
struggle against the Holy See. They had neither the right of de- 
liberation, nor a collective vote, nor any regular part in the govern- 
ment. Their rôle was quite different from that which the assem- 
blies of the same kind played in England. Nevertheless, it is 
proper to give Philip the Fair credit for having taken a long step 
towards the political emancipation of the Third Estate by calling 
it to a regular sitting by the side of the Nobility and the Clergy. 

10. Philip's Religious Policy. — William the Scot, the monk 
of Saint Denis, who knew Philip well and who was with him 
during his last moments, has left a rather surprising portrait of 
the king. Having spoken of the elegance of his person, he pictures 
him as one '* shunning evil conversation, exact in the performance 
of divine offices, a faithful observer of the fasts prescribed by the 
Church, scourging his flesh with the hair shirt of an ascetic." 

Yet this grandson of Saint Louis, concerning whose piety and 
moral purity there is no doubt, was responsible for a policy of 
aggression toward the Papacy which shocked his contemporaries 
and scandalized the Christian world. 

The French clergy were at that time rich, numerous, and 
powerful. They had made common cause with royalty since the 
X century, but conflicts had often risen with the king, since the 
feudal rights of regalia, wardship, and mortmain necessarily gave 
occasion for frequent interventions on the part of the royal power. 
Yet in spite of the fact that, when the jurisdiction of the Church 
was brought into competition with the jurisdiction of the crown, 
Philip strove to confine himself within proper limits, nevertheless, 
the king, so intent upon diminishing the independence of the courts 
of justice of the feudal barons, was no more tolerant towards the 
courts of justice of the Church, and wherever opportunity pre- 
sented itself, the royal agents made rough warfare upon its officials, 
denounced without hesitation the abuses of ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
tion, and resolutely pushed the extension of the royal authority. 

11. Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII. — The struggle of 
the crown against Boniface VIII forms one of the most dra- 
matic episodes in the history of Philip the Fair. 

Thanks to the efforts and to the intellectual acumen of a line 



i8 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

of able popes, the Papacy at the close of the XHI century occupied 
a position of European ascendency. Boniface VHI, elected in 
1294, personified this spirit of domination, and even surpassed his 
predecessors in the extent of his claims for the Papacy. Seventy- 
six years old at the time of his elevation, fiery, arrogant, and 
eloquent, well versed in the civil and canon law, he had less the 
qualities of a priest than those of a king. No pope before him had 
had so exalted an idea of his power, and with such a man on the 
papal throne, at the time when the king of France was asserting 
and developing his absolute power, a clash was bound to come. 

In 1296, a part of the French clergy complained to the Holy 
See of the financial exactions of Philip IV. Boniface at once 
issued the bull Clericis laicoSj which threatened with excommuni- 
cation at the same time all those who levied the taxes on the clergy 
and all ecclesiastics who paid them. Philip responded by forbid- 
ding the exportation of gold and silver from the realm, a measure 
which applied with equal force to Flanders and England, but 
which especially threatened to destroy one of the principal sources 
of revenue of Rome. But a reconciliation lasting for several years 
followed these hostilities ; the pope pronounced the canonization of 
Saint Louis and summoned Charles of Valois into Italy. This 
unexpected condescension is to be explained by the difficult situa- 
tion in which the pope found himself. He was carrying on at 
the moment a war to the death with the Ghibellines and the 
Colonna; but as soon as he was free from the embarrassment of 
this civil struggle, he resumed his aggressive attitude toward the 
king of France. 

In 1300 there took place in Rome the great Papal Jubilee 
whose magnificence blinded the eyes of the pope. In the presence 
of the immense concourse of pilgrims which came to Rome he 
felt himself at the height of his glory and well-nigh omnipotent. 
It is a popular legend that he appeared in his pontifical robes, 
clad with the insignia of the Empire and that a herald cried before 
him, " Here are two swords; Peter, thou seest thy successor, and 
Thou, oh Christ, behold Thy Vicar." The two swords were to 
represent the spiritual power and the temporal power; the Papacy 
and the crown joined in the same hands. But the triumph of 
the great Jubilee was destined to be of short duration; almost at 
once came the struggle with Philip. 



THE ATTACK AT ANAGNI IN 1303 19 

12. The Attack at Anagni in 1303. — The pope had sent to 
the king of France Bernard Saisset, Bishop of Pamiers, to recall 
to the king his promise of going on a crusade, and to put an 
end to the royal exactions of which some of the clergy were com- 
plaining. But this bishop was objectionable to Philip, who 
accused him of manipulations on his own account and with or- 
ganizing a conspiracy to withdraw the Langue d'Oc from the 
crown. Saisset was arrested and brought before an assembly of 
the barons at Senlis in 1301. Philip then sent Peter Flotte to 
demand from Boniface the punishment of the bishop of Pamiers 
and his canonical degradation. The pope refused the king's de- 
mands in the bull Asculta fili, which contained these significant 
words: " God in imposing upon us the yoke of apostolic servitude 
has placed us over emperors and kings, to uproot, destroy, annihi- 
late, disperse, beat down, and plant in His name." This bull was 
not burned by the king, as it has been generally asserted, but the 
king's lawyers substituted for it a coarse document in which the 
pope was supposed to expose his own sinister pretensions. 

Philip now called together the Estates General, in 1302, and 
they approved the position taken by the crown. The pope re- 
sponded with a new bull, called Una?n Sanctmn, in which he pro- 
claimed that *' The temporal power ought to be judged by the 
spiritual, therefore," he continued, '' we declare that every human 
creature is subject to the, Roman Pontiff as a condition of salvation." 
This was followed by a threat of excommunication. The French 
answer was a counter-threat of a Church Council. As Nogaret 
had maintained that the only way to render a Church Council 
possible was to lay hands on the pope, he and Sciarra Colonna 
forthwith set out for Italy to have this Council called and to 
have Boniface, who was accused of heresy, removed from his 
office. 

In the summer of that year the pope had withdrawn from 
Rome to Anagni, a place from which two emperors had already 
been excommunicated. When Colonna and Nogaret appeared, the 
town was forced and sacked, and the papal palace was invaded 
September 7, 1303. In the midst of the tumult, it is said, Boni- 
face calmly put on the chasuble of Saint Peter, the tiara with 
the triple crown, took the keys and the cross in his hands, ascended 
the pontifical throne, and waited. Colonna, who had burst in 



20 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

with the rest, although it is contrary to popular belief, did not 
strike the aged pontiff with his iron gauntlet, but he nevertheless 
loaded the pope with insults. Nogaret, who had remained silent, 
then sought to persuade the pope to abdicate, or at least to call a 
Church Council. The pope disdained a reply, simply remarking 
that he would lay down his life before he would his tiara. 

Within a few days the situation changed when the people of 
the town set Boniface at liberty ; but the pope's spirit was broken. 
He returned to Rome, where he was unable to quell the disorder 
that reigned. He spoke only in maledictions, wrung his hands, 
beat his head against the wall, and died of chagrin October ii, 
1303, at the age of eighty-six. Dante, otherwise so hostile to 
Boniface, wrote, " At Anagni I see the fleur-de-lis enter and hold 
Christ captive in the person of His Vicar. Again I see Him de- 
livered up to derision. I see again the vinegar and the gall, and 
He again dies between two thieves." 

Nogaret did not succeed at Anagni, but the pope's death gave 
him the victory. 

After the insignificant pontificate of Benedict XI there was 
elected Bertrand of Gotha, Archbishop of Bordeaux, under the 
name of Clement V. The new pope was virtually controlled by 
the policy of the king of France. He moved his court to Avignon, 
and for seventy years the Papacy was to have its seat in France 
and to be in the hands of French popes. This was the Babylo- 
nian Captivity of the Church. 

In such fashion was formed the alliance between the Roman 
Church and French crown. 

13. Trial of the Knights Templar. — The first result of 
that alliance was the famous trial of the Templars. In this 
attack made by the crown upon the Templars in France the 
reason and the motives of the king are easily discerned. 

The Order dates from 11 18, and had for a long time enforced 
with rigor and severity its fundamental rules of obedience, chastity, 
and poverty. It was long popular. Gifts were heaped upon it by 
the popes and rulers as well as by the people, and in time it 
became immensely wealthy, possessing some ten thousand manors 
throughout Christendom. But with the waning of the Crusades 
the Order lost the chief reason for both its endowment and its 
existence, and, in place of using the gifts bestowed upon it to 



TRIAL OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR 21 

maintain the defense of the Holy Land, the Knights more and more 
used their wealth as capital for banking and commercial enter- 
prises. The arrogance of the Templars had led to their unpopu- 
larity, and the mystery of their rites had given rise to many rumors 
that the members pursued vicious and sacrilegious lives. So 
strong v^ere they, moreover, in the security of their fortress- 
temples, their organization, their numbers, and their w^ealth, that 
under Philip IV they soon fell under suspicion of being dangerous 
to the king's pov^er. 

Bankers and creditors of the king and the nobles, they v^^ere 
both hated and feared. Thus the reasons v^^hich led to their 
downfall were evident: first, they had outlived their usefulness; 
second, they were very wealthy and powerful. 

It was Nogaret, recently made Chancellor, who induced the 
king to proceed against the organization, and in 1307 orders were 
sent to seize the Knights throughout the kingdom and to question 
them under inquisitorial procedure. They were accused, among 
other things, of living in debauchery, of worshiping an idol with 
three heads, and of denying Christ. Upon such charges they were 
tried before a commission of bishops, lawyers, and inquisitors, who 
applied the old Roman law system and questioned the witnesses 
under torture. Hundreds were sent to prison, while many suf- 
fered death by fire. Pope Clement V began to grow restive under 
the spectacle of this inquisitorial trial, conducted in his name, but 
without his consent, and really in spite of him. Finally, he 
suspended the proceedings and called the whole affair before 
him. 

This attitude toward the Templars, had the pope persisted in 
it, would have saved the Order, as very little had been actually 
discovered against them and the trial languished without the sup- 
port of the Papacy. 

Nevertheless, trials continued in France, and at one time the 
court of the archbishop of Sens condemned fifty-four Knights to 
the stake and they were forthwith put to death. The atrocious 
punishment inflicted on these unfortunate men and their courage 
won for them great public sympathy in France, and outside 
France the Templars were everywhere acquitted. 

A campaign of intimidation was then begun against Clement as 
it had been commenced against Boniface, in the hope that the pope 



22 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

would be forced to yield. Several annoying propositions were 
laid before him by the king; that the dead Boniface be tried for 
heresy, and if found guilty his bones should be dug up and pub- 
licly burned; that Nogaret be granted absolution for his part at 
Anagni ; that a Church Council be called to consider various ques- 
tions at issue; and that the Papacy settle at Avignon. In vain 
the pope sought to escape the humiliation prepared for the Papacy, 
and finally he made use of his only hope of escape: he sacrificed 
the Templars. At the council of Vienne he had it proclaimed that 
Boniface was quite orthodox, and that Philip had not committed 
any sin against the Church. The Papacy settled at Avignon, and 
in the same council, in 13 12, the pope pronounced the suppression 
of the Templars. 

Two years later, the Grand Master of the Order, Jacques de 
Molay, and the Commander in Normandy, steadfastly protesting 
their innocence, were burned alive on a small island in the Seine. 
The king and the pope both died within the year following, and 
it was then that people remembered that Molay before his death 
had challenged them to appear within the year before the tribunal 
of God. Theoretically, the goods of the Templars were be- 
stowed by the pope upon the Hospitallers, but by a variety of 
manœuvers they fell to the king's treasury. 

Thus, the confiscation of the wealth of the Order by the crown 
was the practical result which had furnished a leading motive in 
its condemnation. 

14. The Army under Philip the Fair. — Fortunately, the 
foreign policy of Philip furnishes less occasion for criticism. In 
order to assure to the French crown an honorable position in the 
eyes of the other Powers of Europe, it was necessary to support it 
with the moral force of a well-organized army. Philip worked 
upon this task tirelessly. At the time of the war with Flanders 
he authorized a commutation of personal service for a money 
payment, and by means of this impost, the government was able 
to raise an army composed of well-trained nobles, commons drawn 
from the communal militia, and foreign mercenaries, by this 
means restoring the army to its former position under Philip 
Augustus. The dangers which were threatening France led Philip 
further to make use of a new resource by reviving levies in mass 
under the name arrière-ban; and he proclaimed it to be the duty of 



THE WARS OF PHILIP THE FAIR 23 

all Frenchmen to take up arms for the defense of the fatherland. 
At the same time he installed at the Louvre a great arsenal for 
engines of war and organized a military marine. These were the 
military resources which he had at his disposal for his wars. 

15. The Wars of Philip the Fair.— Philip the Bold had be- 
queathed to his son the war against Aragon. Philip the Fair, 
who had more pressing interests than to conquer a crown for his 
brother, Charles of Valois, hastened to abandon the army and, 
thanks to the mediation of the pope and the king of England, was 
able to conclude peace. The treaties of Tarascon (1291), and of 
Anagni (1295), gave Sicily to the king of Aragon and the king- 
dom of Naples to the son of Charles of Anjou. 

Almost at once Philip was engaged in a struggle with the king 
of England for the possession of Guienne. The war commenced 
in a quarrel between the sailors of the two countries, and was 
rendered acute by the rivalry of commercial companies. As the 
result of prolonged negotiations, Edward I married the sister of 
the king of France, and Guienne was surrendered as a pledge 
to Philip to be given in fief to the eldest male child born of that 
union; but the treaty was violated upon both sides, and Edward 
formed a league against Philip with the German princes. Philip 
easily extricated himself from this difficulty by winning away the 
allies of the king of England, and hostilities continued with inter- 
ruptions until the treaty of Montreuil (1299) restored Guienne 
to Edward I. 

To reimburse himself for the loss of Guienne, Philip had just 
confiscated the county of Flanders, and had placed in irons its 
count, Guy de Dampierre, who had surrendered himself to Philip's 
mercy ; but the insolent tyranny of the king's agent in Flanders led 
to a terrible revolt of the Flemish. A French army of fifty thou- 
sand knights then foolishly hurled themselves upon the Flemish 
and were crushed at Courtrai {The Day of the Spuis, 1302). 
In this battle four thousand gilt spurs were captured by the 
victors, and so many fiefs were vacated by the death of their 
holders that the royal power was very considerably strengthened. 

The energy of Philip to a certain extent redeemed this disaster, 
for almost at once he was victor at Ziericzee on the sea, and at 
Mons-en-Puelle on land (1304), and several months afterwards a 
treaty returned Flanders to Robert of Béthune, son of Guy de 



24 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

Dampierre, but which left to France nothing but Walloon 
Flanders between the Lys and the Scheldt. 

16. The Territorial Acquisitions of Philip the Fair. — In 
these several directions the foreign policy of Philip could scarcely 
have led to great results; it is rather in secondary matters that it 
succeeds. In his constant endeavor to organize a solid frontier 
upon the east, the king compelled the bishop of Viviers to recog- 
nize his suzerainty and to yield him half of the Vivarais in 1307. 
Then he cast his eyes upon Lyons- That part of the city situated 
on the right bank of the Saône and the Château of Saint- Just were 
under the suzerainty of the king of France. The rest of that 
powerful city had rendered obedience to the Empire, but thanks 
to his prudent and wise policy the king extended his protection 
over the entire city. An attempted revolt against his power in 
13 10 was severely repressed, and as a result the archbishop, Peter 
of Savoy, renounced all of his temporal jurisdiction. Lyons then 
became part of France. 

It is to be noted that Philip attempted to aggrandize himself 
everywhere at the expense of the Empire, and he did this without 
ever entering into a war. He was the friend of the emperor, 
Adolf of Nassau, and followed the same policy in regard to 
Albert of Austria. The historian William of Nangis even asserts 
that there was concluded at Vaucouleurs an understanding by 
which the emperor admitted that the Rhine was the eastern French 
frontier. This pretended donation of Albert of Austria was not 
confirmed by any official act, and at the present time there is no 
doubt that the limits of the kingdom on the side of the Empire 
remained just what they were before the interview of Vaucouleurs. 
In 1308, Philip tried to have his brother, Charles of Valois, made 
emperor. The attempt failed, but the definite policy on the part 
of the king of France of insuring the safety of his eastern frontier, 
and of extending the French influence to the Rhine, shows that 
Philip the Fair understood the true national policy of France. 
This is possibly his greatest claim to glory, and when he is seen 
drawing clients from among the princes of the Empire, pensioning 
the archbishop of Cologne, the bishops of Verdun, Liège, and 
Metz, the duke of Brabant, the counts of Luxemburg, Hainaut, 
and Namur, it is difficidt to avoid comparing his policy with that 
followed later by Charles VH, Henry IV, and Louis XIV, 



ADMINISTRATION OF PHILIP THE FAIR 25 

17. The Prestige of the French Crown. — Philip was not 
content with increasing the extent of his territory simply; he 
wished to have the honor and authority of France respected 
abroad as well. An occasion for asserting his position soon pre- 
sented itself. The baron of Saint-Laurent had entered French 
territory in arms and had mistreated a sergeant of the bailiff of 
Macon. French troops thereupon proceeded to level to the 
ground his castle in what was undoubted Savoyard territory, and 
in order to render memorable this signal vengeance forever, the 
duke of Savoy had to promise not to rebuild it. The king like- 
wise forced Frederick, King of Sicily, to apologize to him for cer- 
tain hostile demonstrations which he had made against Charles 
of Valois. Philip read with approval the memorandum in which 
the lawyer Dubois counseled him to extend the French domination 
over the civilized world, and he seems himself to have conceived 
designs of universal dominion. At his court he received the 
ambassadors of the Khan of Tartary; he was the ally of the king 
of England ; the friend of the kings of Scotland and of Norway ; 
and he participated in all the great questions which engaged his 
time. Thus, in the presence of the immense influence of Philip, 
one can readily understand the great national enthusiasm which 
appeared at the time, as well as the indignation of Dante. The 
Italian enthusiast himself had dreamed of a universal monarchy 
in his curious book. De Monarchia; but he dreamed of it for the 
profit of the emperor, and not for the benefit " of that evil plant 
which covers all Christendom with its shadow." 

18. The Centralized Administration of Philip the Fair. — 
There was one principle which Philip the Fair seemed to follow 
constantly. This was his policy of centralization. It was his 
fixed determination to concentrate the royal power in his own 
hands or within the hands of his agents, and to transform the 
feudal suzerainty into a sovereign monarchy. This policy will 
be evident from a rapid survey of the central administration, the 
local administration, the judicial organization, and the organiza- 
tion of the finances. 

Even up to the middle of the XIII century the central power 
had been confined to a small number of persons. The king had 
for ministers the great officers of the crown, and governed with the 
aid of a council endowed with political, judicial, administrative, 



26 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

and financial powers. Philip definitely separated these divers ele- 
ments, and formed out of them three distinct bodies: the Council, 
the Parlement, and the Chamber of Accounts. 

19. The Council. — Not definitely organized until 1318, it con- 
sisted of an assembly of those persons whom the king summoned 
to aid him in the administration of the government. They were, 
in reality, counselors rather than a council. Here were to be 
found princes of the blood, certain high barons, bailiffs, and " all 
those whom it pleased the king to summon." There were coun- 
selors by the title of their office, but in general the composition of 
the council varied according to the affairs to be handled. The 
lay counselors had, in part, supplanted the great officers of the 
crown at the head of the government and the functions of the 
Seneschal, the Butler, the Chamberlain, and the Constable were 
either suppressed or diminished. On the other hand, the Chan- 
cellor's acquired an unusual importance. He was the king's 
secretary, the chief of the, bureaus, a kind of prime minister, whose 
importance in time became very great. 

20. The Parlement. Administration of Justice. — The sec- 
ond division of the King's Court was the Parlement, which stood 
at the head of the judicial organization. For a long time Philip 
the Fair has been regarded, if not as the founder, at least as the 
organizer of the Parlement. The famous ordinance of 1302, to be 
sure, only regularized a situation which custom had gradually 
created, but it regulated it in a precise manner. The ordinances 
of Philip the Fair, and of Philip V, sanctioned the principle of 
the residence of the Parlement in Paris. They recognized its 
division into three chambers: Great Chajnber, Chamber of In- 
quest, Chamber of Requests, and fixed upon two as the number 
of sessions which it should hold. By the introduction of the appeal 
of default of justice, by the increase in the number of cases which 
were to be tried in the king's court, the Parlement, little by little, 
limited the jurisdiction of the feudal barons. Its competence ex- 
tended over the whole kingdom as well. Philip the Fair did not 
create an absolutely new state of affairs, but what he did was to 
make the supremacy of the Parlement one of the principal founda- 
tions of the monarchy. 

21. The Local Administration. — The policy of uniting the 
administrative, financial, judicial, and military powers in the hands 



THE CHAMBER OF ACCOUNTS 27 

of the agents of the king extended to the Provinces and singularly 
simplified the machinery of local government. 

The provincial administration consisted of two grades of 
functionaries: the first rank was composed of the baillis, in the 
south called the seneschals; the second grade of hierarchy was 
^lled by agents who bore different names in different provinces; 
prévôts, vicomtes, juges, bayles; below them came the sergeants. 
These inferior royal officials were under the authority of the 
baillis and of the Parlement; they were also under the extraordi- 
nary jurisdiction of the enquesters and the réformateurs. Thus it 
was that the crown found among these provincial agents the most 
tireless supporters of its policy, capable even of overcoming the 
occasional weakness of the central power itself. 

22. The Chamber of Accounts. Financial Administra- 
^tion. — The third member of the King's Court appeared in the 
creation of the Chamber of Accounts, which established itself in 
the Palace of the City. Its functions, which are not even yet 
clearly defined, appear to have been very extensive. It was, gen- 
erally speaking, the Council of the King upon financial matters. 
Guardian of the domain, it received the homage of all the vassals 
of the crown. It had jurisdiction over the special royal rights, 
all the accounts of the crown, and gave its advice upon the issuing 
of ordinances in regard to financial matters. 

Under the Chamber of Accounts the whole financial adminis- 
tration was organized. In the XIII century the budget of the 
State was not made up of the product of numerous and varied 
taxes; the king lived on his income like a feudal noble. In each 
bailiwick the bailiff {bailli) was at the same time the tax receiver, 
the disburser, and the accountant. He collected all the income of 
the bailiwick, together with the income from the fines and pay- 
ments in kind. He raised besides this the sums necessary for 
paying the expenses of the province and sent what was left to 
Paris. 

During his whole reign Philip the Fair needed money for his 
subsidies to foreign princes and to pay off not only his troops, but 
the increasing number of the royal, civil, and judicial officers 
which his centralizing policy made imperative. From this neces- 
sity originate the oppressive taxes, notably the maltate of 1292, 
which raised such an outcry from the people. From this came also 



28 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

the debasing of the coinage, which gave him the name of " the false 
coiner," a name, however, which he merits scarcely more than 
the rest of the kings in the Middle Ages, although he did vary 
at his pleasure the weight and the denomination of the coins, but 
even this was a territorial right in which the crown saw not the 
least injustice. 

23. Summary of the Reign of Philip the Fair. — Such, in 
its general characteristics, was the reign of Philip the Fair. His 
work has been variously estimated by historians. Generally he 
has been represented as the rough adversary of Boniface VHI, 
manifesting bad faith and violence in the trial of the Templars, 
and full of brutality towards the Flemish. Yet in all these 
charges it is difficult to rest a finger upon the definite influence 
which Philip himself exerted in his reign, since everything with 
which he has been reproached seems to be at variance with what 
his contemporaries tell of the king's character. H, on the other 
hand, the character of the men who surrounded the king be 
examined, Nogaret, Plassin, DuBois, Peter Flotte, and Enguer- 
rand de Marigny, it will be seen that the aggressive, insistent, and 
pitiless policy which marks the reign of Philip is in complete har- 
mony with the character of the men who counseled him. 

The results of the period may fairly be divided into two parts 
by distinguishing the acts which were dictated by necessity from 
those which were the result of a regular development of ancient 
institutions. The first was a work of violence and injustice; the 
second was a work both intelligent and lasting. The spirit of 
the reign was not the spirit of justice and Christian charity, like 
that of Saint Louis ; it was imperial and Roman, insisting upon the 
omnipotence of the prince and seeking in the matter of law, jus- 
tice, and finance to make royalty absolute. 

24. The Reign of Louis X (1314-1316).— The eldest son of 
Philip the Fair, Louis X, called the Quarrelsome, reigned only 
two years. A feudal reaction, already begun under Philip IV, now 
became violent, and the nobles, under the leadership of Charles 
of Valois, demanded the punishment of the lawj^ers who had 
governed under Philip the Fair. The most compromised among 
them, Enguerrand de Marigny, was accused of malversation and of 
sorcery, and was hanged on the gallows at Montfauçon. Soon 
the barons went farther. Organized into Provincial Leagues, 



REIGN OF PHILIP V, THE TALL 29 

they demanded the re-establishment of all the privileges which the 
crown had taken away from them. The king was compelled by 
a series of charters, the most famous of which is the Charter to 
the Normans, to give back to them the right of private warfare 
and the judicial duel, to forbid arbitrary taxes, and to diminish 
the power of the Parlement. These concessions might have been 
fatal to the crown, but the nobles were not sure of each other, 
and Louis X, and afterwards Philip V, profited by this circum- 
stance to annul, little by little, all the privileges which had been 
accorded to the nobility. In a celebrated ordinance, Louis gave 
freedom to the serfs of his domain, who had to pay for their 
enfranchisement, nevertheless. 

25. Reign of Philip V, the Tall (1316-1322).— Louis X 
died in 13 16, leaving, by his first marriage, a daughter only, the 
Princess Jeanne. His second wife, Clementine of Hungary, gave 
birth to a posthumous son, John I, who died several days 
later. 

The barons had already decided that if Clementine did not 
give birth to a son, the heir of the throne should be Philip of 
Poitiers, second son of Philip the Fair, and he had himself an- 
ointed king at Rheims, on the 9th of January, 13 17. Then he 
had declaration made on the 2d of February by an assembly 
of the barons, the prelates, and the burghers, that females could 
not succeed to the throne. Under Charles V there later came 
into existence the idea of basing this declaration on the specific 
title of the Salic Law, which reserved the Salic land to males 
{De terra verro salica in mulierem nulla portio transit, sed hoc 
virilis sexus acquirit, title 42, 6), and at the end of the XV 
century there was drawn from the Salic Law the principle ac- 
cording to which the crown of France was transmitted from male 
to male. 

Philip the Tall resumed and continued the work of his father. 
He restored to the royal power all its prestige, and succeeded in 
dissolving every one of the Provincial Leagues. He definitely 
reorganized the Parlement and the Chamber of Accounts, took 
care to establish a uniformity in weights and in money, protected 
the towns, supported the Third Estate, joined Poitou and 
Saintonge again to the crown, and declared that for the future all 
parts of the royal domain should be inalienable. 



30 POLICY OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY 

26. Reign of Charles IV, the Fair (1322-1328).— Upon 

his death his four daughters were excluded from the throne in 
favor of his brother, Charles IV. There is little of interest in 
the reign of Charles the Fair. He participated in the political 
matters of his time, intrigued in vain for the imperial crown in 
Germany, and aided his sister. Isabella, Queen of England, in 
overthrowing Edward II. At home, he continued with profit the 
work of his father, and punished in an exemplary fashion one of 
the most powerful of the nobles of the south. He died at the 
age of thirty-four, in 1328, leaving only a posthumous daughter. 
With him was extinguished the direct line of the Capetians, which 
had given fourteen kings to France. 



CHAPTER III 

PHILIP VI AND JOHN THE GOOD (1328-1364)— THE 
HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

1. Philip VI of Valois (1328-1350).— Philip VI, son of 

Charles of Valois and of Margaret of Sicily, was the nephew of 
Philip the Fair, and grandson of Philip III. Charles IV, the 
late king, left no male heir, and in conformity with a decision taken 
by the barons, Philip of Valois was therefore proclaimed king. 
But Philip had two competitors. One was Philip of Evreux, who 
had married Jeanne, the daughter of Louis X; the other was 
Edward III, King of England, who was grandson of Philip the 
Fair through his mother, Isabella. Philip VI eliminated the first 
by ceding to him Navarre and a considerable income. Philip of 
Evreux then renounced his claim to Champagne and Brie, which 
were definitely joined to the crown. As for Edward III, he 
found himself in a situation too difficult at home to give any force 
to his pretensions abroad. His kingdom was disturbed at the 
time by the troubles which had marked the end of the reign of 
Edward II, and by a war with Scotland. For this reason, when 
Philip of Valois summoned him to render homage for his fiefs of 
Guienne and Ponthieu, the king of England presented himself in 
the cathedral of Amiens, where he bent the knee before his 
suzerain, and contented himself with asserting from the moment 
of his accession, in the name of his Parliament, his rights to the 
crown of France. 

2. The War with Flanders (1328).— The new king of 
France very soon had occasion to unfurl the royal banner. The 
Flemish had just revolted against their count, Louis of Flanders, 
who implored the aid of Philip VI. The king at once called 
together his barons, took the oriflamme to Saint-Denis, and 
marched toward Arras. The Flemish communes did not succeed 
in holding together. For, whereas Ghent and eastern Flanders 

31 



32 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

continued in their obedience to the count, the militia of Bruges 
and of Ypres moved toward Courtrai. Under the leadership of 
their burgomeisters they established themselves at Mount Cassel, 
an isolated hill w^hich commanded the plains of the Lys and the 
Yser. They were in an impregnable position, but, guided by 
the incendiary fires which the French had kindled in the plain, 
they hurled themselves upon the enemies' camp and succeeded in 
creating a moment's panic. The knights, however, soon rallied, 
threw themselves upon the Flemish, hampered as they were by 
their armor, and made such horrible carnage that thirteen thousand 
of the enemy remained on the field of battle. Louis of Flanders 
was re-established in his authority, as a result, the population of 
Cassel was massacred, Bruges was deprived of its privileges, and 
the whole province reduced to submission. 

3. The Hundred Years' War. Its Origin. — The memo- 
rable struggle which took place between France and England, 
between 1337 and 1453, is called the Hundred Years' War. It is 
divided into two periods, each of which consists of two distinct 
phases: in the first, 1337-1377, France, at first unfortunate under 
Philip VI and John the Good, retrieved her losses by the suc- 
cesses of Charles V. In the second, 1414-1453, France, crushed 
under Charles VI, emerged victorious in the reign of Charles VIL 

The war was due to causes both political and economic. First, 
the political causes. From the day when a vassal of the king 
of France mounted the throne of England, the Capetians had 
never ceased to combat their redoubtable neighbor, and the 
Valois continued the struggle. The pretensions of Edward III 
to the French throne helped to precipitate events. Next, the 
economic causes. In any event economic causes would have led 
to a rupture between the two countries. The kings of England 
had a powerful interest in retaining their hold upon those con- 
tinental possessions which enabled the English to supply them- 
selves with everything which Britain lacked. Such, for example, 
was Aquitaine. Flanders as well was absolutely indispensable to 
the English, inasmuch as England of the XIV century was still 
merely a grazing country which sent to Flanders the wool of her 
immense flocks. *' Still agricultural," says Michelet, " she manu- 
factured nothing. She furnished the materials, others made use 
of it. The wool was on one side of the Channel, the weaver was 



FORCES OF THE TWO COUNTRIES 33 

on the other. The English butcher and the Flemish draper were 
united in the midst of the quarrels of princes by indissoluble 
alliances. France wished to break these bonds, and it cost her 
one hundred years of war." 

4. The Forces of the Two Countries. — It seemed at first as 
if the sources of strength of the two countries were quite 
unequal. The Valois ruled over an extended, rich, and com- 
pact domain. Abundance and luxury prevailed everywhere, and 
the kings of France were the leading sovereigns of Europe. 

Edward III of England, on the other hand, ruled over territory 
less extended, and over subjects less docile, but he was able to 
assure to his country a substantial superiority by the radical revolu- 
tion which he brought about in the manner of making war. 
In his kingdom he insisted on compulsory military service. He 
imposed upon every Englishman enjoying forty shillings of in- 
come the necessity of exercising in the manual of arms, since he 
felt that nothing was more detrimental to an efficient military 
training than the system of knightly parades held so much in honor 
at the court of the Valois. In order to put these views into actual 
practice he strictly forbade jousts and passages-at-arms, and really 
organized modern infantry. In the counties he picked out the 
strongest and most courageous men. The most skilful formed 
the body of archers, armed with a light and pliable bow of wood, 
which could launch three arrows in less time than it took to shoot 
one quarrel with a French or Genoese crossbow, while the bravest 
served as swordsmen or lancers on foot. These swordsmen, re- 
cruited among the mountains of Wales and Cornwall, in lieu of 
a breastplate, were armed with a huge cutlass which permitted 
them to attack a knight on equal terms when he was unhorsed. 
Edward thus succeeded in bringing about a thoroughgoing and 
successful reorganization. " The infantry up to that time had 
been the accessory of the feudal army. He made of it the main- 
stay," and it constituted four-fifths of his total force. Finally, 
he trained his soldiers to war by frequent drilling, popularized 
archery, and recommended to his subjects that they compel their 
children to learn French. Thus was formed the invincible 
English army of the XIV century, which won its victories at 
Crecy and at Poitiers. 

In contrast to this seriously organized force the French army 



34 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

remained essentially feudal. It was composed of the vassals, who 
owed military service to the king, the contingent furnished by the 
communes, and several bodies of mercenary infantry; but its main 
reliance was placed in the knights, who sold their services to the 
king, and made a chosen profession of war. Covered with heavy 
armor, excelling in the handling of their well-caparisoned horses, 
and trained to deliver terrible thrusts with their lances, they 
observed no discipline, despised the foot soldiers profoundly, 
and viewed a battle as a tournament. Between the two armies the 
differences were so obviously fundamental that the outcome of 
the struggle could not long be in doubt. 

5. The Beginning of the War. — The great war between 
Edward HI and Philip VI began with covert hostilities. The 
king of England had received at his court Robert of Artois, great- 
grandson of Saint Louis, who claimed Artois from his aunt. Rob- 
ert had not hesitated before this time to present false evidence to 
the Parlement, and had been condemned to banishment. On his 
part, Philip VI supported Robert Bruce against John Balliol, 
the king of England's candidate in Scotland, and offered him an 
asylum in France after the defeat of Halidon-Hill. 

Serious warfare began in 1337. Philip VI ordered Louis 
of Nevers to seize all the English who were to be found in 
the realm. Edward responded by forbidding the exportation 
of English wool and the importation of Flemish cloth. The 
burghers of Flanders, who detested their count and who could 
not dispense with England, revolted at once, allied themselves with 
Edward, and took for their leader the brewer, James van Artevelde. 
The king of England organized a formidable coalition with the 
emperor Louis IV, the dukes of Brabant, Guelders, Hainaut, 
Luxemburg, and Juliers. Although the English attempted in vain 
to get possession of Cambrai, a French fleet of one hundred 
forty vessels was beaten near Sluys (1340). The war then lan- 
guished in Guienne and in Scotland, and a truce v/as signed in 
1340. 

6. The War of the Breton Succession. — A war regarding 
the succession, however, almost immediately broke out in Brittany. 
The duke, John III, had died without heirs, and the duchy was 
claimed by two competitors: his niece, Jeanne, of Penthièvre, who 
had married Charles of Blois, nephew of Philip VI, and hi§ 



THE ENGLISH INVASION 35 

brother, John IV of Montfort, who was married to Jeanne of 
Flanders. The country at once divided into two parties: French 
Brittany supported Jeanne of Penthièvre; Breton Brittany, John 
of Montfort. Philip VI announced himself in favor of his 
nephew, Charles of Blois, a pious knight who wore the hair shirt 
of the monk under his coat of mail; while John IV rendered 
homage to the king of England, who in return promised to take 
him under his protection. Thus, the king of France was fighting in 
Brittany against the law of male succession on which he based his 
claim to the crown of France, while Edward defended in Brittany 
the law which would have excluded him from the French throne. 

The war in Brittany was to last a quarter of a century (1341- 
1365), — a war consisting chiefly of surprises, sieges, and ambushes. 
Supported by the troops of Philip VI, Charles of Blois captured 
John of Montfort and sent him as a prisoner to the Louvre; but 
the countess of Montfort, the heroic Jeanne of Flanders, cried, 
" It is only one man less," placed herself at the head of the army, 
appealed to the English, and threw herself into Hennebon. She 
was on the point of being relieved by an English army when 
Philip VI entered Rennes. Edward III landed in Brittany, and 
raised the siege of Vannes, Rennes, and Nantes. The two sov- 
ereigns were about to come to blows near Ploërmel when the 
intervention of the papal legates induced them to sign a truce 
January 19th, 1343, lasting three years. 

7. The English Invasion. The Battle of Crécy (1346).— 
An act of violence on the part of Philip VI caused a renewal of 
hostilities. Upon the pretext that they were plotting with Eng- 
land he had Oliver of Clisson and fourteen Breton knights ar- 
rested and put to death. Edward III then prepared to send three 
armies against France: the first, into Guienne, under the leader- 
ship of the duke of Lancaster ; the second, into Brittany to support 
John of Montfort, who had escaped from the Louvre; the third, 
into Flanders in order to support James van Artevelde. But 
Lancaster, victorious at Auberroche, was checked by John of 
France, duke of Normandy; at the same time John of Montfort 
died at Hennebon, and Artevelde was assassinated. Edward was 
making preparations to sail for Guienne when a French exile, 
Geoffrey of Harcourt, advised him to land in Normandy. This 
advice possibly coincided with Edward's own plans, for the king 



36 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

of England landed at Cape La Hougue in July, 1346, ravaged the 
Cotentin and advanced to the outskirts of Paris; but hearing that 
an army of forty thousand men had gathered in the capital, he 
crossed the Seine at Poissy, intending to seize Ponthieu and 
Flanders. Having beaten off the militia of Amiens who w^ere 
guarding the fords of the Somme, he crossed and retreated rapidly 
into the forest of Crécy, where he awaited the French. He 
arranged his little army of thirty thousand men in three divisions 
upon a hill which could not be flanked except by a difficult ap- 
proach. In the van he placed the longbowmen and swordsmen, 
flanked on either side by divisions of dismounted knights, one 
division being commanded by the Prince of Wales. The king 
commanded the third, a reserve division. 

The French army, numbering nearly seventy thousand men, 
arrived about two o'clock in the afternoon, August 26th, 1346. 
The king was strongly advised to wait until the next day in 
order to obtain rest for his army, which had been worn out by 
a punishing march in a driving rain and over miry roads; but 
the barons, urged on by a point of feudal honor, wished to begin 
the action at once. The Genoese crossbowmen who formed the 
advanced guard thereupon received the order to begin the attack; 
but their bows, soaked with rain, were useless and they retreated. 
" Kill me those knaves," cried the king, and the knights rode 
them down as they charged. The English archers who had kept 
their bowstrings dry by winding them under their caps, profited 
by the disorder of the moment to riddle their assailants with 
arrows. It was then that Edward III ordered the Black Prince to 
descend upon the French and win the victory. The knights of 
Philip VI were overwhelmed in spite of their bravery. The duke 
of Alençon bravely lost his life; and the old king, John of 
Bohemia, who was blind, had the bridle of his horse tied to that 
of two of the barons and fell fighting in the midst of the mêlée. 
Twelve hundred knights and more than thirty thousand soldiers 
remained upon the field of battle. Philip VI, who had 
fought valiantly, was carried off by his own men ; the same 
day he presented himself before the Château of Broye and called 
to the châtelain, '* Open, it is the hapless king of France." 

8. The Capture of Calais. — Edward III wished to profit by 
his victory by laying hands upon Calais, and to assure himself 



END OF THE REIGN OF PHILIP VI 37 

by this means of a landing-place upon the continent. The English 
hated the town because its bold corsairs ruined their commerce, 
and for this reason the English ports furnished to their king a 
considerable fleet. Repulsed by John of Vienne, who commanded 
the place, Edward persisted, created a town which was called 
Villeneuve la Hardie, and passed an entire year before the be- 
sieged walls of Calais. The governor sent away all useless 
mouths, and seventeen thousand old men, women, and children 
perished between the French ramparts and the English camp. 
Driven by famine, the miserable people of Calais at length had to 
surrender. John of Vienne, followed by fifteen knights and six 
townsmen, at the head of whom was Eustache of Saint Pierre, 
sought mercy of the conqueror. They were sent to England. The 
townspeople were despoiled of their goods and driven from the 
town. Eustache of Saint Pierre, who had devoted himself to the 
task of sparing the town the horrors of being taken by assault, 
received the favor of Edward III and had his property restored 
to him. The occupation of Calais was a national disaster to 
France, and it remained for two hundred years a port where 
the English could safely land upon French soil. 

9. End of the Reign of Philip VI. — The last years of Philip 
VI were still more unhappy. At the same time that the Scotch 
allies of the French were defeated at Neville's Cross, and Charles 
of Blois was beaten and taken at La Roche-Derrien, a dreadful 
plague devastated the country. This was the Black Death, or the 
"Plague of Florence" (1348). Proceeding from Egypt it rav- 
aged Italy, then France. At first, during the winter, its progress 
was insignificant, but it made a frightful advance toward spring. 
In Paris five hundred persons died daily. Among the victims was 
numbered the queen, Jeanne of Burgundy. Philip VI remarried, 
this time Blanche of Navarre, but died soon after at the age of 
fifty-eight (1350). 

More serious than the plague or even the humiliations on the 
field of battle was the miserable administration of Philip VI. In 
order to obtain money he had recourse to the most disastrous 
measures. Among other things, he constantly altered the coinage. 
The ordinance of 1343 established the gabelle, or tax upon salt, 
which, as it is said, caused Philip to be called wittily, " The 
really salic king," by Edward III. The French king arrogated 



38 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

to himself the sale of salt and compelled the people to come to 
the royal granaries for provisions. Encouraged by this success he 
endeavored to establish another tax on the sale of all merchan- 
dise. At once great tribulation spread throughout the kingdom, 
and actual want ruled in France for several years. 

10. The Increase of the Royal Domain.— Philip, neverthe- 
less, labored as his predecessors had done to increase the royal do- 
main. In 1349 he bought the seigneury of Montpellier from the 
last king of Majorca, James of Aragon, who had been despoiled 
by his cousin, the king of Aragon, and was casting about to find 
the money necessary for his restoration. Another important ac- 
quisition was that of Dauphiny. For a number of years Humbert 
II, Count Dauphin of Viennois, wished to give up the government 
of his province and retire into a monastery. His enfeebled health, 
the death of his son and of his wife, together with financial em- 
barrassments created by his own prodigality, produced in him a 
profound distaste for power. Having attempted without success 
to sell his estates to the pope, and to the king of Sicily, he turned 
to France, which, since the time of Philip the Fair, had been look- 
ing for an opportunity to get its hands upon this province. In 
1342 the son of Philip VI, John of Normandy, met the Dauphin 
at Avignon, misled him by plausible promises, and in 1343 in- 
duced him to sign the treaty of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. Humbert 
promised to surrender Dauphiny to Philip, the second son of the 
king of France. The new sovereign took the name of Dauphin, 
bore the coat-of-arms of France quartered with those of Dauphiny, 
and paid the debts of his predecessor. In spite of the interference 
of Pope Clement VI, who wished to contract a new marriage for 
Humbert H, a conclusive treaty was signed March 30th, 1349, by 
which Dauphiny was surrendered to Charles, the eldest son of the 
duke of Normandy. Humbert then entered the order of the 
Preaching Friars, and Dauphiny became a part of France. 

11. John II (1350-1364).— The successor of Philip VI, John 
II, was thirty-one years old. He did even less than his father to 
overcome the embarrassments of a desperate situation. Personally 
he was generous, a quality which gave him the name of " Good," 
(or Good fellow), by his contemporaries; but he was haughty, ■ 
overbearing, infatuated with the idea of the all-powerful monarchy, 
and was incapable of governing. He took for his model his god- 



HOSTILITIES WITH THE ENGLISH 39 

father, John of Bohemia, who met a soldier's death at Crecy, and 
he aimed to be like him " amorous, courteous, and open-handed." 
He commenced his reign with elaborate fêtes and unheard-of 
prodigality. In order to restore the ancient chivalry which he held 
in such great honor, he founded the Order of the Star, each 
knightly member of which wore on his cloak a star of gold with 
five points, bearing the motto: Monstrant regihus astra viam. 
That he might meet the growing expenses of the treasury he at 
first demanded subsidies from the Estates General in 135 1. At 
several different times he varied the denomination and weight of 
the coinage, and took extraordinary subsidies from the towns and 
the provinces. Finally he gave evidence of the absence of any spirit 
of justice by having the constable Raoul of Nesle seized and 
beheaded on the pretext of treason. 

12. Charles the Bad. — Among the princes whom John II 
should have controlled w^as Charles of Evreux, King of Navarre, 
who had won the name of " The Bad." The territories of this 
young prince of nineteen touched upon English Guienne in 
Navarre, and he possessed the county of Evreux, Mantes, Meulan, 
and several places in the Ile-de-France. He looked wnth regret 
upon Champagne and Brie, which his father had given up, and he 
could not forget the claims which he himself had upon the crown 
of France. Artful and plausible, learned with the clergy, cour- 
teous w^ith the gentility, familiar wnth the townspeople, knowing 
how^ to fool and to win the crowd, he played in French history an 
evil rôle, and Michelet calls him " the demon of France." The 
king at first appeared to conciliate him. He accorded him the in- 
vestiture of his estates, and the hand of a French princess. But 
John the Good soon refused to pay the promised income, and took 
away from him part of his land in order to give it to an unworthy 
favorite, Charles of Spain. Furious at this, the king of Navarre 
had his enemy assassinated and put his strongholds in Normandy 
in a state of defense. Thus the king of England found in him 
a ready-made ally. 

13. Resumption of Hostilities with the English. — The war 
in Brittany continued between Jeanne of Flanders, widow of 
John of Montfort, and Jeanne of Penthièvre, wife of Charles of 
Blois, then a prisoner in England. It was marked by pitiless rav- 
ages, and by the " Fight of the Thirty " upon the heath of Joslin, 



40 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

where thirty Bretons led by Beaumanoir were vanquished by 
thirty English. The war of the two Jeannes did not come to an 
end until 1365. 

An act of bad faith on the part of John the Good soon 
provoked new disturbances. He had promised pardon to Charles 
the Bad, who had taken refuge in England, and who there- 
upon returned to France. Then, while the king of Navarre 
was assisting in Rouen at a great festival in the presence of the 
Dauphin Charles, King John suddenly appeared and had the 
count of Harcourt and three other barons arrested and beheaded, 
and imprisoned Charles the Bad in Château Gaillard. To these 
domestic disorders was added the foreign war, for during the years 
1355 and 1356 the Black Prince frightfully devastated the south 
and the center of France. In the presence of all these dangers 
which threatened the country, the king was therefore obliged to 
summon the Estates General. 

14. The Estates General (1355).— The estates of the 
Langue d'Oïl met at Paris December 2d, 1355. Up to that time 
these great assemblies had played but an insignificant part in the 
government. From now on, however, for a time at least, they 
occupy a prominent place. At this meeting, the knight, Pierre 
de Laforêt, demanded subsidies for the next war. The spokes- 
men for the three orders, John of Craon for the Clergy, Gautier 
de Brienne for the Nobility, and Etienne Marcel for the Third 
Estate, declared '' that they were all ready to live and to die with 
the king, to place their bodies and their goods at his service." 
Subsidies necessary for the support of an army of thirty thou- 
sand men were voted, and to that end a gabelle upon salt and a 
tax of eight farthings in the pound upon the sale of all merchan- 
dise was established and in the presence of the disorders of the royal 
administration conditions were imposed upon the king which he 
was compelled to accept. The taxes were to be collected and 
disbursed by commissioners general named by the assembly, and 
by sub-commissioners or clus. The entire financial administration 
was to be placed under the control of a commission of nine super- 
intendents who were to live in Paris and superintend the raising 
and the disbursement of the subsidies. These important decisions 
were sanctioned in the Grand Ordinance of December 28th, 1355. 
This was the boldest action which had yet been taken in French 



THE BATTLE OF POITIERS 41 

political historj^ since for the first time the nation had acted 
without consulting the wish of the monarch and sought to take 
the government into, its own hands. 

15. The Battle of Poitiers (1356). — It was now imperative 
to send aid to the provinces which were threatened by the English 
invasion. In Normandy, the duke of Lancaster had allied him- 
self with the rebels of the Navarrese faction. In Guienne, the 
Prince of Wales left Bordeaux and ravaged Limousin, Auvergne, 
and Berry. He had just seized Vierzon when he heard that King 
John was coming on with an army of fifty thousand men. The 
Black Prince had an army of only ten thousand men and hastened 
to beat a retreat to a hillside in the plateau of Maupertuis, near 
Poitiers. This region was covered with vineyards, intersected by 
thick hedges, which the English fortified further by digging ditches 
and intrenchments. It was here that King John attacked them, 
September 19th, 1356. The numerical disproportion was so great 
that the Black Prince sent to ask terms of his adversary; John, 
nevertheless, refused to hear him. 

He would have been able to force the enemy to surrender by 
surrounding the hill, inasmuch as the English army could not have 
withstood a blockade for forty-eight hours, but having made a 
summary reconnaissance of the enemy's position, he resolved upon 
an immediate attack. He, therefore, divided his army into three 
bodies, or battles, one commanded by the duke of Orléans, the 
king's brother, the other, by his three eldest sons, the third, by the 
king in person, accompanied by his son, Philip. The knights, 
weighed down with their heavy armor, became entangled in the 
narrow lanes which led to the plateau, and, beaten back by a hail 
of arrows, recoiled in disorder. The English at once left the 
hill and charged upon the battle of the king. John had committed 
an additional blunder by placing his men-at-arms on foot. They 
were powerless to withstand the shock, and were thrown into com- 
plete rout. The king displayed brilliant personal valor at least. 
With a battle-ax in his hand, he fought for a long time, and would 
not surrender until he was wounded. The Black Prince affected 
to treat him with great consideration and bent the knee before 
him, declaring that he had been " the better performer of the day." 
When he entered London afterwards, Edward, the Black Prince, 
was mounted upon a little black horse at the side of his royal 



42 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

prisoner, who rode a white hackney as a sign of his suzerainty. 
The battle of Poitiers was a tremendous setback for France, and 
was certain to have serious consequences within the country. 

16. The Dauphin and Etienne Marcel. — As soon as King 
John was carried away prisoner to England the power fell into 
the hands of his eldest son, the Dauphin Charles, Duke of Nor- 
mandy. He was a young man nineteen years old, pale, timid, 
" young in years and lacking experience," says Froissart. Badly 
surrounded, badly counseled, he inspired but mediocre confidence 
throughout the realm. At his side there arose a new power, the 
Third Estate, which was about to take upon itself the task of 
saving France and of reorganizing the government. Etienne 
Marcel placed himself at its head. He belonged to an old family 
of Parisian drapers, who had furnished several aldermen to the 
capital, and was himself provost of the merchants of Paris, a 
magistrate of considerable weight, whose function it was to pre- 
side over the council of the aldermen, to provide for the defense 
of the burghers, and to protect their interests. Possessed of great 
intelligence, high ambition, and very popular at Paris, Marcel 
was to play a leading rôle in the serious affairs which were pre- 
paring; for this XIV century alderman was to attempt to impose 
the wish of the Paris municipality upon the crown. *' But," says 
Thierry, " it was his misfortune and crime to have a pitiless de- 
termination. To the zeal of a tribune which did not recoil be- 
fore actual murder, he united the genius of an organizer. In the 
great city which he ruled in a ruthlessly despotic fashion, he left 
certain fixed institutions, important achievements, and a name 
which two centuries afterwards his descendants bore as a title of 
nobility.'" 

17. The Estates General of 1356.— The Estates General of 
the Langue d'Oïl convened at Paris, October 17th, 1356. The 
majority in it was assured to the Third Estate, which numbered 
more than four hundred of the eight hundred members composing 
the assembly. The deputies at once announced their intention of 
taking charge of the government and nominated a committee of 
eighty members who were to take cognizance of the condition of 
the realm. A tax of fifteen per cent was voted upon all the 
revenues of the nobles and of the clergy, and the maintenance of 
one man-at-arms imposed upon each group of one hundred house- 



GREAT ORDINANCE OF MARCH 3d. 1357 43 

holds in the cities and in the country. Rigorous conditions more- 
over were forced upon the Dauphin; they demanded the trial of 
the counselors of the king, the recognition of the authority of 
the Estates in matters of finance and of administration, the crea- 
tion of two councils, one a council for war composed of members 
of the three orders, the other a great secret council of twenty- 
eight members, four prelates, twelve nobles, twelve burghers, 
chosen in the Estates, and finally they set at liberty the king of 
Navarre. 

In the presence of demands so arrogant as these, the Dauphin 
simply tried to gain time and at once prorogued the Estates. 
He asked help from his uncle, the Emperor of Germany, in vain 
and so was obliged to return to Paris and to recall the Estates 
February 5th, 1357. Less numerous than the assembly of the 
preceding year, it consisted principally of representatives of the 
Third Estate. By the mouth of Marcel and Lecoq it renewed the 
request of the Estates General of 1356. Resistance after this was 
impossible, and the Dauphin Charles issued the 3d of March, 1357, 
an ordinance which embodied as a law a part of the demands of 
the deputies. 

18. The Great Ordinance of March 3d, 1357.— This great 
reform ordinance had for its chief objects the reorganization of 
justice and the administration of military affairs, and the principles 
which it advanced remained, during all the ancient régime, a 
program of reform which the revolution of 1789 alone could take 
up and put into effect. The Estates became, for the moment at 
least, masters of the government. They had the right of deciding 
upon peace and war, and designated, in consultation with the 
Dauphin Charles, three commissions of ten deputies-general each, 
selected from the Three Orders, for the aids, for the good of 
the realm, and for the coinage. The ten generals-of-aids had 
in each diocese three special deputies or élus, whose duty it was 
to raise the aid. Finally the Estates fixed the time of their 
future meeting, and met once or twice before the ist of March, 
1358, without being called together by the king. 

The demands of the Estates in 1356 and the ordinance of 
1357 ai'6 ^ri admirable monument of the daring and clarity of 
thought of the French of the XIV century. Upon a great many 
points they formulated the principles of good government, jus- 



44 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

tice, and equality to which the XVHI century added little; but 
it is erroneous to conclude that a representative government anal- 
ogous to that of England could have proceeded from the delibera- 
tions of the Estates of 1356 and 1357. The Estates aimed to do too 
much and also too little. In the first place, they endeavored to do 
too much, because they thought to substitute themselves in the 
place of the executive power, and to nominate the royal councils. 
The crown could not accept an effacement such as this. Not con- 
tent with voting the subsidies, they wished to levy them and to 
regulate their disbursement. They thus drew upon themselves 
all the odium which attaches to tax-collectors. As a consequence 
they were not at all able to levy the taxes even in the towns. 
In the second place, they attempted too little, because they did not 
take up the task of transforming the Estates into a regular organ 
of government. They stipulated nothing for the future, neither 
for the periodicity of the meeting of the Estates, nor for voting 
the taxes and the laws. They did not commit themselves beyond 
taking up exceptional measures justified by some extraordinary sit- 
uation in the realm, such as the captivity of the king and foreign 
invasion. Besides, the Estates which met at Paris were only the 
Estates of the Langue d'Oïl; the Estates of the Langue d'Oc also 
met, but they did not display on the several occasions when they 
came together any revolutionary inclination, nor were they con- 
cerned further than to furnish the Dauphin the aid of which he 
stood in need. The Estates of Paris, moreover, could not take 
any measure applicable to the whole realm. Their votes were bind- 
ing only upon those who were present, and by multiplying their 
sessions they wearied the deputies into absenting themselves in 
great numbers from the convocations. The Estates General re- 
mained an exceptional and temporary institution, a consultative 
assembly without real deliberative power. Besides this, the com- 
position itself of the Estates, their division into the Estates of the 
North and the Estates of the South, and into the Three Orders, 
rendered impossible their transformation into a regular constitu- 
tional organ, or into a representative assembly. Etienne Marcel 
and Robert le Coq seem to have dreamed of a revolution of this 
kind ; but it was a delusive dream. The Dauphin had already 
decided not to keep the promises which had been compelled from 
him by force, Hardly had thç Estates separated than he for- 



THE JACQUERIE 45 

bade the payment of the taxes which had been voted, recalled 
his old counselors, and resumed the customary forms of govern- 
ment. 

19. The Parisian Revolt. — The struggle from now on as- 
sumed a serious aspect, the violence of which finally led to the 
overthrow of Etienne Marcel. The provost began by delivering 
from prison the king of Navarre, whom he brought to Paris in order 
to oppose the Dauphin, Charles the Bad was received with ac- 
claim by the Parisian populace, whom he harangued at length, 
but confidence in Marcel diminished from day to day, until he 
had about him hardly any one save the Parisian faction. From 
this fact the Dauphin again took courage. In January, 1358, 
Marcel probably organized a coup d'état. At the head of a band 
of burghers, he stormed the Hôtel Saint-Pol, where the Dauphin 
was living, and murdered before his eyes the Marshal of Cham- 
pagne and the Marshal of Normandy, his chief advisers. These 
outrages, in alienating the support of the upper merchant class, 
were fatal to the provost of the merchants. The Dauphin at once 
turned this royalist reaction skilfully to his own profit, and after 
having himself named Regent, he abruptly left Paris and sum- 
moned the Estates at Compiègne. The deputies of northern France 
assembled there in great numbers. They protested against the 
demagogic tyranny of Marcel, assured the Regent of their fidelity, 
and supplied him with subsidies, but at the same time they had the 
foresight to resume the consideration of the 'wisest measures of 
1357 touching the administration and the finances. In the face 
of this assembly frankly devoted to the royal power, Marcel 
sought allies in Charles the Bad and among the peasants of the 
Jacquerie. 

20. The Jacquerie. — Never had the misery of the country 
been so frightful, inasmuch as all the misfortunes of war fell 
upon the tillers of the soil. Even when the enemy was not there, 
the brigands, adventurers, and mercenary bands pillaged and 
oppressed the peasants. These lawless hordes went up and down 
the land, taking away from the peasants' store what little was left 
after the provisions due to his seigneur and the subsidies exacted 
by the war had been paid. More than this, the unhappy peasant 
was obliged to help fortify the castles which seemed to him more 
menacing to the unhappy French people than to the English. 



46 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

The excess of these misfortunes ended by provoking a terrible 
uprising. 

In the month of May, 1358, the peasants of the village of Saint 
Leu in Beauvaisis gave the signal by sacking the castle of their 
lord. The revolt spread rapidly. From the Somme to the 
Yonne more than one hundred thousand rose. Armed with 
staves, forks, and scythes, they gave themselves up to frightful 
excesses. The " Jacques," as they were called, took for a leader 
a peasant named William Karle. These "mad dogs," as Froissart 
calls them, gave the country over to fire and blood; but every 
one at once rose against them. The towns closed their gates, and 
the French, English, and Navarrese united in crushing them. 
Charles the Bad exterminated several thousand near Montdidier 
and crowned their chief upon a tripod of red-hot iron. The 
Dauphin himself massacred several bands near Meau, while the 
nobles took terrible reprisals and drowned the insurrection in 
blood. 

21. Death of Etienne Marcel (1358). — For the time being 
Etienne Marcel had based great hopes upon the revolt of the peas- 
ants, and had sent them aid ; but with the Jacquerie once crushed he 
knew well that it would be difficult to struggle against the army 
which the Dauphin had assembled. There was only one resource 
left — the support of Charles the Bad. Unfortunately he had just 
allied himself with Edward, HI and bound himself by a treaty which 
he signed on the ist of August to surrender to the king of Eng- 
land a part of the realm of France in case he, Charles, should 
mount the throne. The policy of the provost thus became anti- 
national; but Marcel had, besides, made numerous enemies. Ac- 
cording to a somewhat doubtful account, when he was inspect- 
ing the posts at the Saint Antoine gate, the sheriff, John Maillart, 
and a knight, Pepin des Essarts, threw themselves upon him cry- 
ing " Treason ! " and killed him with an ax. Thus perished this 
extraordinary man. It seems, however, more reasonable to sup- 
pose that his death was the result of a ro^^alist conspiracy against 
nim. " He was doomed to die as the friend of the Navarrese, 
whose success would have dismembered France, but the ordi- 
nance of 1357 lived and will live " (Michelet). A violent reaction 
broke out in Paris, and the greater part of the friends of the 
provost were put to death. The Dauphin, who re-entered the 



THE TREATY OF BRÊTIGNY 47 

capital on the 2d of August, calmed the passions of the populace, 
forbade violence, published a decree of amnesty, and even re- 
stored to the heirs of Marcel a part of their fortune. 

22. The Treaty of Brétigny (1360).— Nevertheless, the 
war was far from being ended. The king of England and the 
king of Navarre by the treaty of August ist, 1358, had agreed to 
divide the realm between them. The Dauphin began by freeing 
himself from Charles the Bad. He induced him to sign the 
Peace of Pontoise (1359), by which Charles promised *' to be a 
good Frenchman in the future." King John, growing weary of his 
long captivity, signed the disastrous treaty of London (March 
25th, 1359). As the price of his liberty he gave up to Edward 
HI the western half of France and all of the maritime region. 
By a stroke of the pen the whole work of the Capetians was thus 
annulled, and France was returned to the time of Louis the Fat. 
The Dauphin refused to subscribe to this dishonorable compact, 
and called the Estates General, May 19th, 1359. The deputies 
declared with one voice that the treaty could not possibly be 
accepted, that they preferred still to endure and to support the 
great disasters that existed, rather than to allow the realm of 
France to be thus diminished and defrauded. 

At first Edward HI landed at Calais at the head of a con- 
siderable army, but the Regent provided against all contingencies, 
fortified the towns, raised troops, refused to give battle to the 
enemy, and allowed him to spend his strength in an exhausting 
march across France. The king of England, having passed Rennes, 
and having ravaged the region about Paris, yielded to the prayers 
of the legates of Innocent VI and signed the peace of Brétigny 
(March 8th, 1360). Edward III, in return for the surrender to 
him in full sovereignty of Guienne, Gascony, Calais, the coun- 
ties of Ponthieu, Guienes, Agenois, Perigord, Rouergue, Quercy, 
Bigorre, Poitou, Saintonge, La Rochelle, Angoumois, and 
Limousin, renounced his claim to the throne of France and 
to the ancient possessions of the Plantagenets north of the 
Loire. The ransom of King John was fixed at three million 
crowns of gold. Thus ended the first period of the Hun- 
dred Years' War. Edward HI had not been able to supplant 
the Valois dynasty, but he succeeded in dismembering the 
kingdom. 



48 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 

23. The Death of John the Good (1364).— King John, în 
returning to France, endeavored to remedy the evils of the w^ar by- 
publishing wise ordinances with respect to agriculture and com- 
merce. He wished to free the country from the curse which 
plagued it, the Great Companies of soldiers; but the royal leader 
who was sent against them allowed himself to be beaten, and John 
found occasion to commit a new blunder in the matter of the 
succession in Burgund}^ The duke of Burgundy died without 
issue, and his rich inheritance was dismembered ; Artois and 
Franche-Comté were given to the dowager countess of Flanders, 
the counties of Auvergne and of Boulogne to John of Boulogne; 
and the rich duchy of Burgundy was joined to the crown. Un- 
happily the king allowed himself to be influenced by the strong 
affection which he felt for his younger son, Philip (the Bold). He 
gave Burgundy to him as an appanage, and thus created a second 
house of Burgundy which was to be the occasion of much em- 
barrassment to the French monarchy. In the meanwhile, the 
duke of Anjou, held as a hostage in England, escaped. John H 
set out for London to surrender himself, less perhaps in a spirit 
of loyalty than because he regretted the enjoyments of the English 
court. '' Causa joci/' says a contemporary. He died three months 
afterwards, April 8th, 1364. 



CHAPTER IV 
CHARLES V AND DU GUESCLIN (1364-1380) 

1. The Condition of France in 1364. — John the Good left 
a sad inheritance to his son, Charles V. France, humiliated and 
dismembered, was desolated at the same time by a civil and a 
foreign war. Charles the Bad and his bands occupied the lower 
Seine, while the struggle between the factions of Blois and of 
Montfort continued to devastate Brittany. Besides these discour- 
aging conditions, a terrible plague fell upon the country in the 
shape of the Great Companies. For a long time the inadequate 
character of the feudal armies had obliged princes to have recourse 
to mercenary soldiers receiving regular pay. When a war broke 
out the king usually addressed himself to the leader of such bands, 
who immediately set the campaign on foot and gathered together 
a certain number of adventurers. When peace was signed the 
members of the Companies remained on a war footing, and lived 
at the expense of the country. This practice was now continued 
after the peace of Brétigny. The Companies themselves had a 
character which was essentially international, and adventurers 
from all over Europe were to be found enrolled among their 
numbers. Every profession furnished its contingent. The Com- 
pany had, besides, a regular organization, copied after the English 
army. It had even secretaries, often priests, to sign safe-conducts 
and to register ransoms. They settled down by preference upon 
the vine-growing region of central France, where life was pleasant 
and supplies abundant, and this they called their *' chamber." 
Thus, the persistence of this terrible scourge oppressed the realm 
and plunged the unhappy peasants into the most frightful misery. 

2. Character of Charles V. — Happily the new king of 
France was to find himself at the culmination of these evil cir- 
cumstances. He was born in the Château of Vincennes January 
2 1st, 1336, of King John the Good and his queen, Bonne of 

49 



50 CHARLES V AND DU GUESCLIN 

Luxemburg. Of a sickly constitution, he had neither the martial 
spirit nor the knightly character of his father, but passed his days 
shut up in his Hôtel Saint-Pol, surrounded by scholars, astrologers, 
theologians, and lawyers, absorbed in public affairs or in the read- 
ing of Sallust or Livy. Withdrawn into the library of the 
Louvre, which was paneled with precious woods and full of marvels 
of the goldsmith's art, and where he had collected at great ex- 
pense a thousand manuscripts, he had the great works of antiquity 
translated by the scholars around him. 

Matured beyond his years by the terrible events which he had 
witnessed, he examined into the causes of the misfortunes of 
France and devoted himself to the task of removing them. It was 
his desire to free the realm from the domination of the Navarrese 
and the English and to give it a government at once far-sighted 
in its plans, energetic in its action, and economical in its expendi- 
tures. Thanks to his prudent foresight, he was able to see the 
consummation of all these things. 

3. Bertrand du Guesclin (1320-1380).— To supplement his 
plans, this man of the council chamber needed a man of action. 
He found him in Bertrand du Guesclin, a Breton soldier of for- 
tune. Rough and ugly in person, he was neglected by his parents 
and had so little education that he wrote his name only with diffi- 
culty, while a terrible disposition led him to assail his brothers, his 
companions, and his masters with such fury that they were fre- 
quently covered with bruises and wounds. His short, thick figure 
had none of the martial elegance of the nobles of his time, but 
his great bodily strength and his marvelous vitality early made him 
famous as a terrible jouster. He was a fighter all his life. Shut 
up in a dungeon by his harsh father, tie escaped, and took refuge 
with his uncle, in whose company he first fought in the faction of 
John of Montfort. About 1345, he passed over to the rival fac- 
tion of Charles of Blois, who had the support of the king of 
France. After winning distinction by his defense of Rennes 
against the duke of Lancaster, in 1356, he was made Captain of 
Pontorson. Following the treaty of Brétigny in 1360, he fought 
constantly in the Avranchin and the Cotentin agamst the English 
and Navarraise bands which infested the country, and in all 
northern France he made war upon the Great Companies with 
such vigor as to reduce the country to a semblance of order. 



r 

WAR WITH NAVARRE 51 

Charles recognized these services by making him Seigneur de la 
Roche-Tesson, King's Counselor, and Knight Banneret. With his 
advent warfare was transformed into calculated and methodical 
fighting, but he rendered his great service at this time in freeing 
France from the oppression of both the Great Companies and 
the English. 

This gave him a legendary renown as the protector of the 
common people against the brigands. Indeed, later accounts make 
him appear as the type of a perfect knight. He was, on the 
contrary, all his life long a brutal soldier; but thanks to his 
opportunity and to his natural qualities developed by a long ex- 
perience, he became the most able captain of his time. 

4. War v^rith Navarre (1364-1365). — From the time when 
Charles V came to power he relentlessly pursued a twofold pur- 
pose: first, not to leave any French territory to the enemy; second, 
to establish the royal power ; but his great task was to fight Edward 
III. It was to this purpose that he applied himself, and for six- 
teen years he skilfully wove about his enemy the web in which 
he finally entangled him. First of all it was necessary to set 
himself free from the nearest and most dangerous of his ad- 
versaries, the king of Navarre, who had by no means renounced 
his claims upon the throne of France. Holding Mantes and 
Meulan, the possession of which controlled the course of the 
Seine, the king of Navarre could starve out the capital and admit 
the English to France. For this reason Du Guesclin and Boucicaut 
attacked and took both Mantes and Meulan by surprise. But, re- 
called to the Pyrenees by a revolt which had just broken out in 
Navarre, Charles the Bad sent against them the best of his 
captains, the Captai de Buch, who concentrated his forces between 
Vernon, Pacy, and Evreux. Firmly established on a steep hill 
which dominated the village of Cocherel on the right bank of the 
Eure, he awaited the royal army, but Du Guesclin did not intend 
to repeat the blunders of Crécy and of Poitiers by attacking the 
Navarrése in an impregnable position. He pretended to beat a 
retreat therefore, drew the enemy out upon the plain, hurled him- 
self upon them, beat the Captai de Buch, and took him prisoner. 
The victory of Cocherel in a fitting manner ushered in the reign 
of Charles V, who was anointed king several days afterward at 
Rheims. He showed his appreciation of the services of the con- 



52 CHARLES V AND DU GUESCLIN 

queror by giving him the county of Longueville and certain rich 
revenues. At the same time the king craftily set about to ac- 
complish the ruin of Charles the Bad. He sent ambassadors to 
the king of England to detach him from the Navarrese faction, 
and loaded with honors the noblemen who abandoned the cause 
vanquished at Cocherel. Charles the Bad finally consented to 
sign the treaty of Pamplona (1365), by which he renounced his 
claim to the counties of Mantes, Meulan, and Longueville, and 
obtained in exchange the seigneury of Montpellier, and recovered 
certain places in the counties of Evreux and the Cotentin. 

5. The End of the War in Brittany (1364-1365).— 
Charles V also brought to a close the war which for twenty- 
three years had desolated Brittany. After fruitless negotiations, 
the war between the two houses of Blois and of Montfort had been 
resumed. The king of France, ally of the Blois faction, despatched 
to Brittany a thousand lances, commanded by Du Guesclin, at 
the same time that the Black Prince sent to John V of Montfort 
the army of John Chandos. The two armies met on the 28th of 
September, 1364, before the fortress of Aury, which John of 
Montfort was besieging and which Charles of Blois wished to 
relieve. The army of Montfort, which was inferior in numbers, 
was lodged upon a steep hill. Du Guesclin judged it unwise 
to attack his adversary in that position, but the Bretons of the 
Blois party insisted upon forcing the position of the enemy at 
any price. The fight was long, terrible, and furiously contended ; 
but while the followers of Montfort were careful to observe the 
good military formation which John Chandos had demanded, the 
knights of the Blois party maintained but indifferently the good 
array in which they had been drawn up by Du Guesclin. He 
was defeated and fell into the hands of the conqueror. Charles 
of Blois was killed, and Brittany honored him as a saint. The 
treaty of Guerande (1365) definitively decided the question con- 
cerning Brittany. John V of Montfort was recognized duke of 
Brittany and rendered homage to the king of France, and the 
widow of Charles of Blois, Jeanne of Penthièvre, was permitted to 
retain for herself and for her heirs the county of Penthièvre and 
the vicomte of Limoges. 

6. Du Guesclin and the Great Companies. — The two 
treaties of Pamplona and of Guerande did not solve all the 



THE WAR IN CASTILE 53 

troubles that were vexing the realm of France, however. It was 
further necessary to drive out the brigands who were desolating 
the provinces. To exterminate the bands which had defeated the 
royal army at Brignais was impossible, and the attempt to set 
them fighting one against the other had not produced any satis- 
factory result because the brigands took good care not to allow 
themselves to be controlled. Charles V then cast about to find 
some way of inducing them to leave his territory upon the pre- 
text of a great military expedition. The pope and the emperor, 
Charles IV, at this time were doing their best to organize a 
crusade to support the king of Cyprus, Hugh de Lusignan. In 
agreement with them Charles V commanded the archpriest, Ar- 
nold of CervoUe, to gather together all the bands of adventurers 
who were despoiling France. But the several thousand brigands 
whom he did get together were so badly received in Alsace, which 
they pillaged, that the expedition was a failure and the archpriest 
was massacred by his own men. Some other way, therefore, 
had to be sought, and this was found in the condition of affairs 
in Castile. 

7. The War in Castile. — Spain comprised at that time sev- 
eral kingdoms, the most important of which was Castile, where 
Peter the Cruel ruled. He had rendered himself odious to his 
subjects by his alliance with the Moors and by his pitiless tyranny. 
His wife, Blanche of Bourbon, sister of the queen of France, he had 
strangled. Henry of Trastamara, his natural brother, who was 
a refugee in the Langue d'Oc, strongly urged the pope and the king 
of France to proceed against this prince, whom he represented as 
being the son of a Jewess, and whom he accused of living as a 
heretic, of protecting the infidel, and of crushing his people. 
Charles V detested the murderer of his sister-in-law and was also 
casting about to find some way of freeing himself from the Great 
Companies. He, therefore, paid John Chandos the ransom which 
he demanded for Du Guesclin and commanded the Breton captain 
to lead the brigand soldiers into Spain. 

Du Guesclin at once presented himself at Châlons-sur-Saône, 
where he fell in with the chief leaders of the bandits. He prom- 
ised them two hundred thousand florins in behalf of the king of 
France and as much in behalf of the pope, with absolution for 
their sins, to say nothing of the rich booty which awaited them 



54 CHARLES V AND DU GUESCLIN 

on the other side of the Pyrenees. The brigands allowed them- 
selves to be won over, and thirty thousand of them enrolled under 
the banner of Du Guesclin. Arrived at Avignon, Du Guesclin 
sent to Pope Urban V the confession of his men, and demanded 
of him the two hundred thousand florins which he had promised. 
According to the story, the pope had to redeem his promise and 
to withdraw as well the excommunication which he had hurled 
against the bandits. At the beginning of the year 1365 the army 
crossed the Pyrenees and joined Henry of Trastamara at Bar- 
celona. A general revolt broke out against Peter, who fled to 
Bordeaux, and demanded asylum of the Prince of Wales. He 
begged the Black Prince to replace him upon the throne of 
Castile, promising to give to the English Biscay, " the gateway of 
the Pyrenees; the Calais of Spain." The Black Prince consented, 
crossed the Pyrenees, attacked and defeated the enemies of the 
king of Castile, at Najera, 1367, Du Guesclin fell anew into 
the hands of the English, and Peter the Cruel was re-established 
on the throne. 

But the tyrant of Castile soon forgot the services which the 
English prince had rendered him, and the Black Prince had to 
return to Guienne, worn out by fever, leading his knights ema- 
ciated by their sufferings, having found under his leadership 
nothing but disappointment. As for Du Guesclin, he cleverly 
obtained his freedom. Once more at liberty he raised a new army 
and fought Don Pedro at Montiel (1369). Taken prisoner, Peter 
the Cruel was poniarded by Henry of Trastamara, in whom, as 
king of Castile, France acquired a faithful ally against England. 

8. The Breach with England. — The war with Castile was 
merely a prelude to the great struggle which Charles V was plan- 
ning against England. He had accepted the treaty of Brétigny 
as a salutary truce, but he did not consider it as at all final. If 
he maintained, in appearance, the best relations with Edward HI, 
if he received with greatest honor his son, the duke of Clarence, 
on his way to be married in Italy, and if he paid exactly the terms 
of ransom of John II, he nevertheless labored untiringly to or- 
ganize the forces of his realm and to negotiate well-devised 
alliances. 

In 1369 England herself furnished the occasion which France 
had so long awaited for renewing hostilities. The English viewed 



THE DEFEAT OF THE ENGLISH 55 

their French provinces as conquered territory, which they ex- 
ploited without mercy, and Edward HI had not scrupled to ally 
himself with one of the most famous and most cynical of the 
brigands of the XIV century, Raoul de Caours, and to carry on 
brigandage with him, sharing alike. In the south, the harshness 
of the Black Prince, the crushing taxes which he levied upon the 
country, and the arrogance of the English officers, profoundly 
irritated the population. He brought the discontent to a head 
by demanding of the Estates at Niort a hearth-tax of ten sous 
per household for a period of five years. The Estates emphatically 
refused to grant this, and the provinces of the South delegated 
the counts Armagnac, Périgord, Comminges, the sire of Albret, and 
several other gentlemen to implore the protection of the king of 
France. Charles V received them favorably and summoned the 
Black Prince to appear before the court of his peers ( 1369). Hav- 
ing thrown the messenger of the king of France into prison, the 
Englishman made his famous response that he would " come to 
Paris, but with a helmet on his head and sixty thousand men 
at his back! " Charles V immediately sent a declaration of war 
by a scullion of his kitchen. 

9. The New System of Warfare. — The command of the 
armies w^as intrusted to Du Guesclin, whom the king invested 
with the high office of Constable. At first he refused to accept 
this supreme dignity, protesting that he was not worthy of it. 
Urged by the king, how^ever, Du Guesclin accepted the office and 
completely transformed the art of making war. He replaced the 
numerous bodies of horsemen by a solid body called routiers, who 
could operate singly or could render mutual aid in time of need. 
Only minor engagements w^ere entered upon ; the towns shut their 
gates while the enemy were allowed to exhaust themselves in the 
devastated country. A guerrilla warfare was thus carried on, 
consisting of raids, ambushes, and surprises, where any means was 
considered proper. It was the same system which Du Guesclin had 
practised when he was the obscure captain of a band, and it saved 
France. 

10. The Defeat of the English. — In 1370 three armies, com- 
manded by the French king's brothers and by Du Guesclin, took 
from the English several fortified places. Upon this news the 
Black Prince, who had been sick for a long time, threw him- 



56 CHARLES V AND DU GUESCLIN 

self upon Limoges and pillaged it frightfully. These were the 
last exploits of the English hero, who left immediately for London, 
where he dragged out a miserable existence for several years. At 
the same time Du Guesclin headed off the English army of 
Robert Knowles, which was ravaging the northeast, and de- 
feated him. By the victory of Chize (1372) the Constable 
drove the English from Poitou while a Castilian fleet defeated 
the English off La Rochelle. Edward III was now spurred 
on to a supreme effort, and he intrusted to the duke of Lan- 
caster an army of thirty thousand men who landed at Calais. 
They were allowed to cross Artois, Champagne, and Burgundy 
without ever meeting the French in battle. When the English 
army finally arrived at Bordeaux decimated by fatigue, hunger, 
and incessant skirmishes, it was reduced to a few thousand strag- 
glers. Edward III, discouraged, gladly accepted the intervention 
of the pope, Gregory XI, and signed the truce of Bruges (1375). 
He died two years later, and immediately Charles V, profiting 
by the minority of Richard II, resumed hostilities. The Franco- 
Castilian fleet was sent to ravage the coasts of Great Britain, 
while five armies attacked the English possessions upon all 
sides. In vain the English regents attempted a diversion by 
arousing a new revolt on the part of Charles the Bad. Du 
Guesclin at once entered Normandy and took possession of the 
fortified places of the Navarrese. In 1379 the work of deliverance, 
begun by Du Guesclin, was almost completed ; since the English 
did not then possess in France any territory but Bayonne, Bor- 
deaux, Dax, and Calais. 

11. Brittany and Du Guesclin. — The end of the reign was 
marked by further disturbances, however. In Flanders, the con- 
fused administration of Count Louis and of Philip of Burgundy 
provoked violent discontent. In Brittany, John of Montfort had 
been driven out, and the duchy was vacant. Charles V hesitated 
between the two solutions of restoring the ducal crown to the 
widow of Charles of Blois, or of adding Brittany to the royal 
domain. In 1378 he summoned John of Montfort '' so-called 
Duke of Brittany," before the king's court, recalled to him his 
revolts, and announced the annexation of the duchy to the crown 
of France. It was a serious blunder. Brittany could not endure 
the thought of being lost in the realm, and of being absorbed by it. 



THE GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES V 57 

She looked upon Montfort from this time on as the defender of 
her liberties and her national existence. In vain Charles V sum- 
moned to Paris a great number of Breton lords to explain and 
justify his conduct before them. The province rose, recalled 
Montfort, and began a new war which lasted during the entire 
reign of Charles V and into that of his son, Charles VI. Du 
Guesclin, in an access of rage, surrendered his Constable's sword. 
Charles V succeeded, however, in pacifying him, and induced his 
old servitor to resume a dignity which he had so well merited. 

At the same time troubles broke out in the Langue d'Oc. Irri- 
tated by the tyrannical administration of the duke of Anjou, the 
towns rose in 1379. More than eighty royal officers were mas- 
sacred and their bodies thrown into wells. The king, afraid that 
the rich province might turn English, had the wisdom to inter- 
fere, abolish the impost, take away the government from his 
brother, and intrust it to the count of Foix, who was very popular 
in the south. 

While these disorders were appearing in different parts of the 
realm, bands of adventurers were reorganizing and were desolating 
central France. The king sent against them Bertrand du Guesclin, 
who laid siege to Château-neuf-de-Randon. At the moment when 
the small English and Gascon garrison which occupied the fortress 
was on the point of surrendering, the Constable fell sick and died. 
The English commander then refused to keep the promise which 
he had made to surrender; but the successor of Du Guesclin, the 
Marshal of Sancerre, threatened to put his hostages to death. The 
besieged surrendered immediately, and laid the keys of the town 
upon the coffin of the Constable. Thus died the illustrious cap- 
tain whom his contemporaries mourned as '' the flower of the 
worthies, the glory of France." He was given a magnificent 
funeral by Charles V, and was buried at Saint-Denis in the midst 
of the tombs of the kings of France (1380). Charles V died a 
short time afterwards. He had always pursued the one aim of 
making France great and prosperous by means of a centralized 
and powerful royal authority. 

12. The Government of Charles V. — The reign of Charles 
V, without having been marked by any striking deed of arms or 
by any brilliant political achievement, is one of the most remark- 
able in French history. He drove the English from the realm 



58 CHARLES V AND DU GUESCLIN 

without having recourse to great victories; he reorganized the gov- 
ernment without creating any new institution, and without making 
any important reform. The royal authority, which had encoun- 
tered such great perils during the domination of Etienne Marcel, 
recovered and became more powerful than ever. For the men of 
the XIV century the family of the fleur-de-lis was the first of 
all, the most glorious. The king was the anointed of God. He 
appeared to his brother kings as " the most Christian King," to 
his subjects as their " very excellent, redoubtable, most powerful, 
and debonair Sire." He was addressed with the titles of '* your 
most high Domination, your most kind Benignity, your high 
Majesty." Every will bent before his. 

Charles V had met too much resistance in the Estates General 
to wish to make use of it as a regular means of government, and 
he summoned it but once, in 1369, at the time when he resumed 
hostilities against the English. He preferred to call together 
assemblies of notables, and especially to govern with the aid 
of the Great Council, to which he appointed the most illustrious 
personages of the realm. Out of regard for the ideas of Aristotle 
Charles V made the office of Chancellor elective, and formed into 
an elective body the Great Council, the Parlement, and the 
Chamber of Accounts. 

13. The Parlement. — Among the permanent bodies forming 
the government, there figured in the first rank the Parlement of 
Paris. Charles V preserved the organization as he had received 
it, and at his advent confirmed the seventy-three magistrates then 
in office. He committed himself to extending its dominion and its 
functions, conceived the pompous splendor of the lits de justice, the 
impressive audiences presided over by the king surrounded by the 
officers of the crown, the princes, the peers, »and his Council. 
Later, this formality was employed by the kings in imposing on 
the Parlement the registration of edicts. It is in the course of 
the XIV century that the practice became established of inscrib- 
ing upon the registers of Parlement the edicts decided upon in 
the Council. Parlement and the Council were in fact two mem- 
bers of the same body. 

14. The Army. — Feudal military service could no longer sat- 
isfy the needs of a monarchy which grew from day to day. The 
army was composed at the time of two chief elements: the knights 



THE FINANCES 59 

with the men-at-arms who served them, and the combatants en- 
listed for voluntary service. The military unit in the royal army, 
thus composed, w^as the company, paid by a captain, and com- 
manded by him, forming by itself a sort of little army in the 
great one, half noble and half common, without rigorous discipline, 
useful in time of war, but ravaging and pillaging in time of peace. 
Charles V strove to reorganize the military resources of France, to 
resume command, and to impose a severe discipline. By the ordi- 
nance of Vincennes he attempted to give to France the regular 
army which it lacked. He fixed the effective strength of each 
company on the march at one hundred men-at-arms; reserved to 
himself the appointment of the captains; imposed upon them an 
oath of fidelity; and held them responsible for the misconduct of 
their soldiers. He placed them under the absolute authority of 
the Constable, the Marshals, and the Master oj: the Crossbowmen, 
who named the clerks and deputies responsible for reviewing and 
inspecting the companies to see that they were complete, and to 
make certain that the sum^s fixed by the king were paid in un- 
diminished form by the captains. Ordinances prescribed to the 
inhabitants of the country training in shooting the longbow and 
the crossbow, and the arming of each man according to his means. 
While the edicts of Charles V were but poorly observed under 
Charles VI, the companies of archers and crossbowmen rendered 
great service in the XV century. The action of the army was sup- 
ported and extended by that of the marine, and Charles V was able 
to send the admiral, John of Vienne, to ravage the coast of 
England. A few ships only belonged to the king, the greater 
part of the vessels being furnished by the maritime towns, or 
requisitioned from individuals, and the enlistments were made up 
largely of Normans, men of Picardy, Spaniards, and Genoese. 

15. The Finances. — It is in the administration of the finances 
especially that the wisdom of Charles V displays itself, for in 
his reign the crown made use of the right of imposing general con- 
tributions. Up to this time the kings had to content themselves 
with the revenue of their domains. To these were added extraordi- 
nary aides, voted them by the Estates General for a limited time and 
under certain conditions; but in 1369 Charles V had the Estates 
General of the Langue d'Oïl vote extraordinary aides to defray the 
expense of the war, and he continued to levy these year after year 



6o CHARLES V AND DU GUESCLIN 

without once summoning the Estates, by this cpurse of action 
rendering the taxes a permanent grant. The principal sources 
of these taxes were the capitation, the hearth-tax (or tax for every 
chimney in the towns, and in the country), the gabelle or the tax 
on salt, and the douanes, which were taxes upon articles of con- 
sumption. For the direct tax and the indirect tax, which were 
assessed not simultaneously but alternately, the king reorganized in 
north and central France the financial administration. This re- 
organization was inspired by the program presented by the Estates 
General in 1356. It retained the nine superintendents, called, 
from this time on, the Counselors General for collection of the aids, 
responsible for the integrity of the levy, and for supervising the 
disbursements of the subsidies. They were assisted by Receivers 
General, but the Estates nominated them itself, as well as the élus, 
responsible within the dioceses for the adjudication and the ad- 
ministration of financial matters. Their returns {conscriptions) 
took the name of " elections." Unfortunately, while giving to 
France a sound financial system, Charles V had recourse to the 
financial expedients which his predecessors had practised: the ap- 
propriation of the tenths of the Church, and the abuse of the right 
to borrow money. He strove, nevertheless, to make war upon 
that malady which was called the morbus numericus, the perpetual 
alteration of the coinage. Inspired by the doctrines of Oresme, in 
his Treatise upon the Coinage, the king committed himself to the 
principle of striking a coinage of a constant value, which should 
inspire the confidence of the merchants. Thus, Charles V tried 
to ameliorate the evils from which France was suffering by secur- 
ing to the monarchy an instrument adequate to its needs. 

16. The Results of the Reign of Charles V.— The last 
moments of Charles V were saddened by misgivings. The king 
felt troubled about the future. He was given to doubting the 
legitimacy and permanency of his reforms, and charged his suc- 
cessor to suppress the permanent tax. Yet the work which he had 
done, while perhaps less brilliant than that of a Charles VII or 
of a Louis XI, was none the less remarkable. He had recovered 
the dismembered parts of the realm, and had made France 
stronger and more respected abroad and better governed at home. 
With him reason ascended the throne, replacing the knightly 
prowess of John the Good by the skilful manipulations of Du 



RESULTS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES V 6i 

Guesclin, who succeeded in substituting regular well-disciplined 
armies for the devastating hordes of the Great Companies. He 
had constant recourse to diplomacy, and sought to make legitimate 
the w^ars which he could not prevent, rescuing the civil power 
from the tyranny of the spiritual power, and establishing in 
France a comparatively regular and honest administration. 



CHAPTER V 

INSTITUTIONS AND ARTS OF FRANCE IN THE 
XIV CENTURY 

1. New Character of the Monarchy. — During the XIV cen- 
tury French royalty made immense progress. Beyond doubt by 
that time the Capetian monarchy, no longer merely a feudal gov- 
ernment, was tending to become a monarchy in the true sense of 
the word. The Capetian ruler was '* King by the grace of God, 
Very Christian King, Protector of the Church," responsible for 
the maintenance of peace and the defense of justice, having, there- 
fore, the right to make his power felt throughout his kingdom. But 
these principles did not find concrete expression before the XIV 
century and the king ceased to be a simple suzerain before he be- 
came an actual sovereign. 

2. Growth of the Royal Domain. — Until then, it must be 
repeated, it was as a great landed proprietor that he wielded a 
formidable power and played an important rôle. The Capetians 
and the Valois never forgot this, and exerted themselves con- 
stantly to increase the extent of the royal domain. They multi- 
plied opportunities for annexing more property of every sort by 
means of conquest, marriage, confiscation, purchase, and inherit- 
ance. Henceforth, if the kings of France were able to undermine 
the authority of the barons, it was because they were richer and 
more powerful than the feudal lords, inasmuch as the greater part 
of France had already become their domain. The realm was 
regarded as the especial property of the king, but this proprietor- 
ship took on a more exalted character than that of the ancient 
feudal ownership, for the kingdom was now conceived of as be- 
longing to an abstraction called the Crown. 

More and more it appears that two principles were tending to 
become established: the inalienable character of the property of 
the crown ; and the reversion to the royal domain of the property of 

62 



SPLENDOR OF THE MONARCHY 63 

a prince upon his accession to the throne; conditions which in- 
evitably fostered an increase in the extent of the roj'al domain 
without there being, at the same time, any corresponding tendency 
to diminish it. 

3. The Monarchy Definitely Organized. — At the same time, 
the principles of government were more or less clearly laid down. 
As to the succession, it was not until the close of the reign of 
Philip Augustus that the principle of hereditary succession to the 
crown definitely supplanted the hitherto accepted practice of elect- 
ing the king. Until then the reigning monarch had taken the 
precaution of having his successor recognized during his own 
lifetime, but from that time forward this formality became un- 
necessary, and the royal power was transmitted from father to 
son without challenge. The happy fortune which permitted 
the Capetians to see the crown handed down in the direct line 
for three centuries gave birth to the principle of succession in 
the male line, which later bore the name of the Salic Law. Due 
to this circumstance, the crown never fell into the hands of a 
foreigner. Upon the other hand, the kings, by their marriages 
with foreign princesses, were able to increase the royal domain 
by the dowers which these marriages brought. 

There still remained one important question to be regulated : 
when did the king attain his majority? The definite regulation 
of this matter was the w^ork of Charles V. In 1374, he declared 
that a king of France is legally of age when he has completed 
thirteen full years, ad quartum decimum annum. Dating from 
this time, the monarchical power performs its functions regularly 
in France. 

4. Splendor of the Monarchy. — During the period w^hen they 
were thus altering their royal power, the kings of France were also 
transforming the life of the court. The Valois held it to be in- 
dispensable to their majesty and to their prestige to have a 
numerous and magnificent following, and the king proudly gath- 
ered about him his nobles and great officers on those days of 
solemn festival when he opened his palace to the barons and the 
townspeople. He took especial pleasure in the city of Paris. It 
was there that Charles V reconstructed the Louvre, and the trans- 
formed old fortress was, henceforth, worthy of being the sanc- 
tuary of the triumphant royalty. Viewed from the Seine, it dis- 



64 INSTITUTIONS AND ARTS OF FRANCE 

played itself in its real grandeur. Defended by a long crenelated 
wall, pierced by two gates, the king's castle reared itself upon the 
bank of the river, with its large windows, its steep roof, its tur- 
rets, and its sixteen-fathom dungeon. It was at once a citadel 
and a pleasant dwelling. It contained a granary, a pantry, a 
larder, a bakery, a fruitery, a linen room, a peltry, and other like 
conveniences. Its armory was famous. This consisted of great 
storerooms filled with nothing but crossbows and arms of all kinds. 
There was a room for feathering arrows, another for casting tin 
and lead, another for making gunpowder. Surrounding these 
buildings were the king's and queen's gardens, with their banks 
of turf, their groves, and their summer houses. 

Besides this, the king liked to travel. There were the rich 
castles which Charles V himself had built, Saint-Germain-en- 
Laye, Beauté-sur-Marne, and Vincennes with its magnificent for- 
ests filled with fawns, hinds, and deer. The Hôtel Saint-Pol, 
especially, expressed the characteristic features of the king's life 
in the XIV century. This was an elegant, luxurious establishment 
having the most beautiful gardens in Paris. Contemporaries never 
weary of describing its wonders: its falconry, with the constant 
clamor of hawks and falcons, its menagerie, in which the king 
kept lions brought from Africa, its tennis courts, its aviary full of 
rare birds, and its great halls richly decorated with paintings 
and tapestry. 

5. The Central Power. — For a long time the Capetian kings 
had governed with the assistance of their Court, in which there 
sat, by the side of the great vassals, the officers of the crown, and 
clerical and knightly councilors, who very quickly assumed great 
importance. This Court was at the same time the king's council 
and his tribunal. When the greater part of France had entered 
the royal domain, its business became so extensive and so com- 
plicated that a single body could not continue to be responsible for 
its administration. A division of its labors was thus found to be 
imperative. This division, which had really begun under St. 
Louis, was made uniform by Philip the Fair. The King's Court 
consisted of three Councils: (i) the Parlement, (2) the Grand 
Council, and (3) the Chamber of Accounts. 

6. The Parlement of Paris. — Definitely established at Paris 
by the ordinance of 1302, the Parlement became an actual court 



THE PARLEMENT OF PARIS 65 

of justice, which sat ordinarily in the Palace of the city. Com- 
posed at first of barons, bishops, and men of law, it very soon 
changed its composition. The number and variety of its business 
affairs called for a profound knowledge of customary law, 
Roman law, and canonical law, and the barons did not have this. 
" Legal procedure became an art, and recourse was of necessity 
had to trained practitioners." It was in this way that the juris- 
consults and the legists immediately supplanted the barons. The 
Parlement itself was further divided into several chambers, the 
most important of which was (a) the Great Chamber, which was 
par excellence the court of Parlement. There were tried in this 
court the peers, criminal cases brought directly before the Parle- 
ment, cases that involved the interests of the king or the crown, 
and appeals from lower courts which were conducted by counsel. 
Then, too, there was (b) the Chamber of Petitions, which passed 
judgment upon the officers of the crown, and cases especially con- 
ceded to Parlement as a privilege, and (c) the Chamber of In- 
quests, which dealt with cases drawn up in writing and not con- 
ducted by counsel. The Parlement had most extended jurisdiction. 
It judged in the first instance civil or criminal cases, which were 
brought directly before it, as, for example, cases touching the in- 
terests of the barons or the peers; it was a court of appeal for all 
cases which had been tried before lower courts or feudal tribunals ; 
and it was a supreme court in matters of administrative conten- 
tion, — that is to say, in a suit between the king and individuals. 
It took on political attributes, when, at the end of the XIV cen- 
tury, the practice was established of having it register the royal 
ordinances. Moreover, when the king came to the Great Chamber 
for the purpose of holding formal sessions with his Council, he 
summoned the members of Parlement to the Council for their 
advice in important cases. 

The Chancellor was the supreme head of the Parlement. It 
was his duty to preside at its sittings, upon reopening to make 
a formal speech, to administer the oath of office to the magistrates, 
to present to Parlement the text of royal ordinances and to pre- 
scribe the manner of their registration. Next in order of prece- 
dence came the first presiding judge, then the other presiding 
judges and counselors. They received their compensation from 
the Treasury, and were authorized to receive spices {é pices), or 



66 INSTITUTIONS AND ARTS OF FRANCE 

presents ojEfered them by the litigants. These presents were, at 
first, baskets of staples which came from the Orient, whence the 
name spices. This practice became a law, and in time the spices 
were converted into money. The custom is very old and goes back 
as far as Charlemagne's time at least. 

In addition to the presiding judges and counselors, who were 
at first named by the king, there appeared the barristers, who were 
responsible for arguing cases, king's counselors, who directed the 
forms of court procedure, like the attorneys of today, the registrars, 
notaries, clerks, and minor attendants of the court. Born of 
the royal power, depositary of a part of the sovereignty, the Par- 
lement rapidly increased in importance, little by little created its 
traditions and its own life, and became a living force in the realm. 

7. The Grand Council. — The Grand Council, which varied 
a great deal in its composition because the king summoned to it 
whomsoever he pleased, was the very center of government. The 
princes of the blood sat there as a matter of right, but the barons 
in it gave place to the great officers of the crown and to coun- 
selors of every rank, whether noble or common. It deliberated 
upon all matters; it tried all cases which it pleased the king to 
call up before it; it was an administrative tribunal, a court of 
appeal, a council of the ministers, and a Council of State. Every 
act of the king, all ordinances, mandates, and decrees, were drawn 
up under the form of letters presented in Council. 

8. The Chancellor. — The chief minister of the king was the 
Chancellor, who was the first of the great officers of the crown ; 
he was chief justice, presided over the Council in the absence of the 
king, and had its administrative acts drawn up and witnessed 
with the royal seal. He had under him secretaries and notaries, or 
confidential clerks, who, taking part in all the acts of royalty, 
gradually becam.e real ministers. 

9. The Petitions of the Royal Household. — Finally the king 
had near him the Masters of Petitions of the Household, clerics 
and laymen, who examined the numerous petitions presented to 
the king, and drew up and reported matters to the Grand Coun- 
cil. They judged cases in which members of the royal household 
were involved, or in which were concerned designated persons who, 
by letters called co?n?nittimus, had received the right of being 
summoned before this tribunal only. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF FINANCE 67 

10. The Chamber of Accounts and the Administration of 
Finance. — The Cha??iber of Accounts was invested with the entire 
control of financial matters. The king was obhged to have con- 
siderable resources to draw upon. Until the XIV century there 
never had been any real taxes, since the early Capetians had 
nothing but revenues from their domains and feudal dues. The 
fines for the violation of the king's edicts and the rights of 
mutation with reference to fiefs were rarely paid, and the rights 
of regalia and amortizement concerned only the episcopal sees and 
ecclesiastical benefices. There was no general taxation and Philip 
Augustus could not raise even the Saladin tenth demanded for the 
Crusade. But the increase of the domain, the growing importance 
of the public service, and the war with the English created financial 
needs which increased daily, and the kings began to establish taxes 
of a general character in the name of the royal power. Philip 
the Fair authorized his vassals to purchase for themselves ex- 
emption from military service. Philip VI established the monopoly 
on salt, the gabelle. 

Indirect taxes upon sales and upon commodities, though called 
aides, have a royal and not a feudal character. At first accidental 
and temporary, and levied with the consent of the Estates, they 
assumed more stability under Charles V, who, by the side of in- 
direct taxes, levied hearth-taxes, or direct taxes upon every fire- 
side or family. These also are termed aides, and last during his 
entire reign without the Estates having been consulted about them ; 
but these royal taxes disappeared at his death, and not until Charles 
VII does the royal taxation, whether it was direct (taille) or 
indirect {aide), become a regular institution. These imposts, 
nevertheless, were still alwaj^s termed extraordinary finances, the 
ordinary finances being revenues of the domain only. 

Over and above these resources the king had secured for him- 
self others upon which he drew. He alienated portions of his 
domain, sold titles of nobility, granted royal offices in return for 
money, contracted loans, confiscated the property of the Jews, drew 
profit from the alteration of the value of the coinage, withheld 
the salary of his officers and the wages of his troops, demanded, at 
the beginning of his reign, the " gift of his happy accession " {don 
de joyeux avènement) , and upon the occasion of his marriage, the 
donation of the queen's girdle {la ceinture de la reine) ; in short, 



68 INSTITUTIONS AND ARTS OF FRANCE 

he had recourse to all sorts of expedients which very frequently 
aroused the discontent of the people. 

The coinage was regulated by eight Masters of the Mint who 
formed a tribunal called the Chamber of Coinage. Finally, the 
Waters and Forests were in charge of six Masters of Waters and 
Forests. Their revenues, like the coinage, constituted a part of 
the ordinary finances. This financial organization, already efficient, 
was to be the basis of the financial system which Charles VII later 
organized, and which, along its main lines, was to last as long as 
the ancient monarchy. 

11. The Estates General and the Provincial Estates. — 
It has been seen in what fashion the kings of the XIV century 
called together the first Estates General, and why these were not 
able to form for France the basis of a representative sj^stem. It 
is clear, also, in what manner this institution performed its 
duties, important to be sure, but accidental and temporary, and 
deprived of any kind of guarantee as to its action, its regularity, or 
its permanency. 

To the king alone belonged the right of summoning the Estates, 
and this right was exercised with great irregularity. There was 
no way of determining what towns should be represented in the 
Estates. There were some nobles who were not summoned ; the 
deans and chapters of the churches were summoned sometimes, and 
sometimes they were not. The king addressed writs of summons 
directly to the great feudatories, to the prelates, bishops, and 
abbots. He had the lesser nobility, the chapters of the churches 
and monasteries, and the towns summoned by the bailiffs and the 
seneschals. Among the latter, the bonnes villes, that is to say, the 
communes and the independent municipal towns, should all have 
been called on to appoint deputies ; but there were always excep- 
tions to this; as to the villes insignes, the bailiffs chose them at 
their pleasure. Attendance at the Estates was a feudal duty. 
The nobles and prelates who did not come in person chose proxies 
or deputies, and the towns and chapters did likewise, but their 
number was not fixed. The princes of the blood, the repre- 
sentatives of the University of Paris, and members of the Grand 
Council took part in the Estates. 

The king opened the Estates in a formal session and often 
presided. He dissolved them when he found that they had sat 



THE PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION 69 

long enough. The Chancellor, or a member of the Council, 
stated the object of the meeting, and the members of the Estates 
responded either by orders, or collectively. When the matter 
had been considered sufficiently, so that a conclusion was to be ar- 
rived at, the king dismissed the deputies, and drew up in his Council 
an ordinance in which he followed the sense of their votes. This 
decree was sent to the bailiffs and to the seneschals, who were re- 
sponsible for having it executed. 

Apart from the Estates General there was an institution which 
should have become the point of departure for a new order of things : 
this was the Provincial Estates. It is probable that at the close of 
the feudal epoch each province had its Estates. The delegates of 
the towns met there in the XIV and XV centuries with the lay and 
ecclesiastical feudatories chosen like those of the Estates General. 
The chief function of the members of these provincial Estates was 
to watch over the assessment and collection of the subsidies. 

12. The Provincial Administration. — In the provinces the 
administration was always in the hands of the bailiffs in the 
north, and of the seneschals in the south. They were invested at 
the same time with military, judicial, and financial authority. 
They raised troops, administered justice, and levied the taxes. 
Named by the Council and in its pay, they were absolutely devoted 
to the cause of the monarchy. In order to prevent them from 
following the example of Carolingian officers of the same char- 
acter, who made themselves hereditary in their office and inde- 
pendent, they w^ere chosen from among the small nobility, and 
precautions were multiplied on ■ all sides to remove any oppor- 
tunity for improper ambitions. The king's Council had oversight 
of their conduct, the Parlement reviewed their judgments, the 
Court of Accounts examined their financial transactions, and the 
royal inspectors {enquesteurs) descended upon them at unex- 
pected moments, and sent back detailed reports of their conduct. 
They were never allowed to remain long in the same province; 
and they w^ere forbidden to acquire land there or to marry in the 
territory. These bailiffs subsequently became the most active and 
formidable agents of monarchical centralization and the inveterate 
enemies of the feudal aristocracy. 

13. The Army. — Of the changes which were brought about 
in favor of the crown, one of the most fruitful was the new 



70 INSTITUTIONS AND ARTS OF FRANCE 

military organization. The first Capetians had no other army 
than that which feudal service assured them; but the duration of 
that service vi^as limited, and the loyalty of the barons was always 
uncertain. A regular army was indispensable to the crown. For 
this reason there were enlisted bands of men from whom perma- 
nent service and passive obedience might be demanded. These 
were companies of men maintained by regular pay {soldoyiers). 
If he enlisted these on the one hand, on the other hand the 
king consented to grant to a great number of his subjects the right 
of being exempted from military service in return for the pay- 
ment of a sum of money: this was the Aid of the host. With this 
money, by the side of the feudal contingents the king could or- 
ganize mercenary soldiers, commanded by the nobles, who were 
also paid. Philip the Fair was thus able to gather together about 
sixty thousand men. The royal troops were commanded by the 
Constable, who was at the same time one of the chief officers of the 
crown, and often the most trusted counselor of the king; below 
him came the two Marshals of France, and the Grand Master of 
the Crossbowmen, who commanded the infantry. The nobles 
established in their provinces as king's lieutenants were responsible 
for oversight of the enlistment and the organization of these 
troops. 

By the necessities of the new warfare, the equipment of the 
soldier was transformed. The conical helmet of the feudal age 
gave place to the visored bassinet, the heavy hauberk to the lighter 
haubergeon, and the sword-chain to a leather belt. The archer 
wore a round casque called the salade, a short sword, a bow with 
a quiver of arrows, and a jerkin reinforced with strips of iron, 
which was called the jacque. There were established military pay- 
masters, whose duty it was to have supervision over military ad- 
ministration, commissary inspectors for the mounts of reviews, 
and quartermasters for rations and munitions. 

Unfortunately, while a profound revolution was transforming 
the English army into a real modern army and was giving to the 
infantry its legitimate place in action, the French army was pre- 
serving its feudal traditions. The French chivalry insisted upon 
holding the first rank; they sent challenges to the enemy, and 
presented themselves at the assault fitted out as if for a tourna- 
ment. Around these brilliant chevaliers there swarmed a horde 



THE NOBILITY 71 

of Genoese, Brabantese, Spanish, and Scotch adventurers, who, 
when they were not vigorously repressed, cared a great deal more 
for plunder than for victory, and fled when the former was de- 
nied them. The nobility on horseback despised and often cut down, 
as at Crecy, " this riff-raif which senselessly blocks the way." 
Thus were prepared the terrible disasters of the Hundred Years' 
War before Du Guesclin could lead the French armies to victory 
by making war an affair of the common soldier. 

The artillery which made its appearance during this period was 
from the XV century onward to modify profoundly the condi- 
tions of warfare. The French marine also began its development 
in the XIV century. Recourse was had at first abroad and galleys 
were rented from the Genoese, the Pisans, and the Spaniards. 
Besides this, under Charles V, an effort was made to construct in 
French ports heavy vessels which were to be manned by Norman 
sailors. Charles V had a fleet of thirty-five vessels, and the 
Admiral of France had military command of all the maritime 
forces. 

14. The Nobility. — Philip the Fair had dealt feudalism some 
tremendous blows. After him its decadence continued. The 
Hundred Years' War discredited the military prestige of the 
nobles. They ceased to have confidence in themselves, when they 
saw the English peasant or the Flemish artisan, armed with his 
bow or with his knife, withstanding the assaults of the barons. 
The advance in equipment and the transformation of the army 
also struck a vital blow at chivalry. It lost its superiority, and 
doubt began to be expressed as to its military virtues, when at 
Crecy, and at Poitiers, the nobles were put to flight. 

The demoralized chivalry, from this time on, made a trade of 
warfare, degenerated into a mercenary army, and devoted itself 
rather to ransoming the country than to defending it, and it was 
attacked with crushing force by public opinion. 

The kings continued to limit the privileges of the nobility. 
They gave circulation throughout the realm to the royal money, 
and commanded the nobles not to imitate it; they forbade the 
nobles to raise taxes without authority, and they reduced their 
administration of justice to nothing more than a preliminary 
hearing, and took important cases away from them altogether. 

In spite of this decadence of feudalism, the life of the aristocracy 



72 INSTITUTIONS AND ARTS OF FRANCE 

was very brilliant in the XIV century. The two first Valois were 
absolutely devoted to the life of chivalry, and John II founded the 
Order of the Star. Never had there been seen such fêtes and 
such tournaments. Thanks to the advancement of wealth and 
luxury, and to the softening of manners, life in the castle and at 
the court became a school of breeding, a center of literary and 
artistic culture. 

15. The Clergy. — In its struggle against the aristocracy the 
royalty of the XIV century did not spare the clergy. The 
*' eldest sons of the Church," as the kings were called, insisted 
with great determination upon the independence of the crown, 
whether it was in regard to the claims of the pope, the supreme 
head of the Church, or in regard to the clergy. The Papacy, it is 
true, escaped at the end of the XIV century from the captivity of 
Avignon, but the Church of France and its king dared to create a 
schism and to maintain a French pope for some time in opposition 
to the pope at Rome. 

By various means the king sought to control the Church in 
France. He compelled the payment of subsidies by the churches, 
reduced the importance of the ecclesiastical courts, took away 
from its officials the cognizance of a great many cases, and limited 
its exercise of the right of excommunication. Henceforth, 
ecclesiastical feudalism, attacked both in its prestige and in its 
sovereignty, had to renounce more and more its prerogatives and 
its independence in order to range itself about the throne. The 
clergy became monarchical, and the political influence, which it 
exercised from then on, it owed chiefly to that royalty which it 
faithfully served. The University of Paris, too, that great body, 
half lay and half ecclesiastical, although it sometimes resisted the 
monarchy and assumed to itself an authority in matters of doctrine 
independent of the Papacy itself, nevertheless was strictly dependent 
upon the crown. Indeed, the University contributed a great deal 
to the strengthening of the national character and to the autonomy 
of the Gallican Church. 

16. The Third Estate and the Townspeople.— The XIV 
century saw the communes ruin themselves and vanish, while at 
the same time the towns prospered and increased daily. The 
crown drew closer the bonds which united it with these 
communities. It authorized the subjects of the barons tO' 



PROSPERITY AND DECADENCE 73 

withdraw from the jurisdiction of the feudal courts in order 
that they might submit themselves to those of the king and be- 
come the king's subjects. The privilege of conferring the rights 
peculiar to the burghers the crown reserved to itself. The Third 
Estate, in which the townspeople found representation, likewise 
increased in force and importance and furnished counselors and 
other officials to the king. Between the commoners, whom service 
for the king had ennobled, and the barons, who were mingled with 
them in the ranks of the legists, the distinction soon disappeared. 
This happened in the case of episcopal offices, as well. Other 
commoners acquiring noble fiefs were absorbed in the nobility of 
the sword. Even the serfs and the villains of the country saw 
their condition appreciably bettered when the barons consented 
to the emancipation of the tillers of the soil by giving to the 
peasants permission to subscribe to a contract which fixed a time- 
limit to all their feudal obligations. 

17. Prosperity and Decadence of France. — Thanks to 
these social transformations there opened up before France of the 
XIV century a vista of great prosperity. According to certain 
estimates its population equaled, at least at some points, that of 
France today. It needed the ravages of the Hundred Years' War 
and the plague of 1348 to depopulate it. If, in our mind's eye, we 
glance over the land of France toward the end of the reign of 
Philip VI, w^e are struck by the great number of villages. The 
cabins are roughly constructed of earth, clay, or mud; but the 
furniture is adequate and almost luxurious. The food of the peas- 
ant indicates the general welfare which reigns throughout the 
country. The most insignificant village has its inns, its bathing 
establishments, its places of assembly, amusement, and pleasure. 
Never has luxury in the matter of dress been pushed to a greater 
extreme. " The XIV century," says Luce, " is the century of 
linen, and the universal use of the linen shirt is, taken all in all, 
the most significant incident of the time." It had as one result 
the development of the manufacture of paper from linen rags. 

To gain an idea of the prodigious luxury which was prevalent 
during this period, it will be instructive to observe what went on 
at the court of Burgundy. Oliver de la Marche and the accounts 
of the household of the dukes often furnish us curious details of 
the festivities and diversions of that court. In the midst of buffets 



74 INSTITUTIONS AND ARTS OF FRANCE 

loaded with gold and silver, on one occasion, was a lifelike drome- 
dary bearing baskets filled with birds, which its conductor liberated 
in the midst of the banqueters; there was a lion of gigantic size 
which sang a ballad and made obeisance, a wolf that played upon 
the flute, boars which blew upon trumpets, and a quartet of donkeys 
which sang an aria. Sometimes there were mountains of ice upon 
which bears scrambled, or whales, sixty feet long, out of which 
came sirens and knights who played their parts, and returned into 
the belly of the monster. These marvelous automatons were not 
the only delights which the duke offered his guests. Pheasants 
in gold dust were served with Pomard and Montrachet wines and 
fat hens in saffron with gooseberry tarts. During this time 
famous minstrels sang some new plaint, while the duke and the 
barons planned for war and the chase. 

Well-being was general. It penetrated at the same time to 
the lower and to the upper classes. Agriculture was in a state 
of great prosperity. Hampered though it was by the miserable 
condition of the highways, by the customs duties which had to be 
paid at the frontier of each province, and by the brigandage of 
robbers and scoundrel knights ambushed upon the great highways, 
internal comm.erce, nevertheless, saw its condition improved in 
the XIV century ; roads were multiplied and became more secure 
as the powers of the crown increased. The principal means of 
exchange at that time were the fairs. These the kings of the XIV 
century made an effort to protect, assuring to the Italian merchants, 
who frequented them, a modicum of security, and exempting them 
from taxes. Tolls established without royal authority were 
suppressed, while the betterment of the river-ways and the con- 
struction and maintenance of highways became one of the domi- 
nant pre-occupations of the central power. In a word, as a cer- 
tain historian says, " Every one who toils, the peasant, the day 
laborer, and the merchant, has prospered with royalty, and by it; 
because it has contributed to the establishment of order which is 
the essential condition of labor" (Pigeonneau, History of Com- 
merce). 

Unfortunately this brilliant flight of France in the XIV century 
was checked by the Hwndred Years' War. The fields were fright- 
fully pillaged by bands of English, Brabant, Genoese, or 
German soldiers, who overran the country, by the armies of 



SCIENCE AND ART 75 

the kings of France, and later by the hordes of the civil war. A 
French soldier was no longer to be distinguished from an English 
soldier, a baron from a brigand, a king's captain from a bandit 
chief; they all alike massacred, devastated, robbed, and burned. 
Agriculture, commerce, and industry languished, and the progress 
of France was rolled a century backward. 

18. Science and Art. — May we properly speak of science 
in a period when astronomy is still nothing but astrology, and 
chemistry simply alchemy, in which legend attributes the wealth of 
Nicholas Flamel, a writer on law of the University, to the dis- 
covery of the secret of transmuting metals by means of the phi- 
losopher's stone, in which the University of Paris forbids the 
practice of surgery to doctors of medicine, in order to give it 
over to barbers. The descriptive and fantastic literature of the 
Bestiaires cannot pass for natural history, and the Traité de la 
sphère of Nicholas Oresme brought nothing new to mathematics. 
The name of Guy de Chauliac, surgeon to the popes at Avignon, 
alone deserves to be set apart from the rest. Not only did he 
dare to attempt serious operations, like those of trepanning and 
for cataract, but in his treatise entitled La Grande Chirurgie he 
displays a true scientific spirit, and shows himself the precursor of 
Ambrose Paré. 

In the arts, as in the literature of the XIV century, there 
is neither the enthusiastic outburst, nor the depth of feeling of 
the XII and XIII century, but there is movement, life, a very 
lively sense of reality, and a taste for elegance and splendor. Its 
religious architecture is, with the flamboyant style, the expansion, 
and for some archaeologists even the perfection of the Gothic. 
All the openings are enlarged, and are filled with branchings and 
skilful handling of moldings in stone, which form most graceful 
designs; the arches are increased in height and in size; a new 
range of low naves is added, and the nave and the apse are sur- 
rounded by a girdle of lateral chapels. The church building it- 
self has become an immense edifice of glass, the framework of 
which is raised to heaven by a network of arched buttresses. 

If the religious architecture of the XIV century is nothing but 
the logical continuation of that of the XIII century, its civil 
architecture presents more originality. The kings, princes, and 
nobles conceived of their residences no longer simply as fortresses, 



76 INSTITUTIONS AND ARTS OF FRANCE 

but as the habitation of luxury and pleasure. If the castle of 
the popes of Avignon preserves the heavy and massive forms of the 
old feudal fortress, the same is not true of the royal residences, in 
which there is sought a reconciliation of the bold experiments of 
M^ealth and elegance with the traditional form of military archi- 
tecture. 

Sculpture, which had in the XIII century already attained to 
such great perfection, continues to produce admirable works. Al- 
though manifesting a less noble feeling they possess, nevertheless, 
a striking realism. At this time, also, France had painters of ex- 
ceptional merit, miniaturists, church decorators, and portrait paint- 
ers, the precursors of the great painter of the XV century, John 
Fouquet. 

The Book of Hours, belonging to the duke of Berry, and now at 
Chantilly, is, perhaps, the most perfect example which the art of 
illumination has left. The industrial arts, as well, goldsmithing, 
sculpture on wood, work in iron and in copper, produced some 
exquisite works in the XIV century. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE REIGN OF CHARLES VI (1380-1422) 

1. The Minority of Charles VI. — The gloomy forebodings 
of Charles V upon his deathbed did not fail to be fulfilled in the 
reign of his successor. He left the throne to a child scarcely 
twelve years of age, Charles VI. In conformity with the king's 
last wishes, he was immediately declared of age, but the gov- 
ernment was intrusted to his three uncles, the dukes of Anjou, 
Berry, and Burgundy, and to his cousin, the duke of Bourbon. 
This selection was most unfortunate. Duke Louis of Bourbon 
alone was honest, but his hesitation and weakness rendered him 
incapable of struggling against the influence of his colleagues. 
The eldest of these *' princes of the fleur-de-lis," Duke Louis of 
Anjou and of Maine, was a violent, avaricious prince. He cared 
for nothing but to amass money in order to conquer the realm 
of Naples, which had been bestowed upon him by Queen Jeanne, 
and on the day of the death of the king, his brother, he stole the 
jewels and the treasures of the crown. Duke John of Berry 
had the government of the Langue d'Oc handed over to him, and in 
1360 he had received Berry as an appanage, and in 1369 Auvergne 
and Poitou. Weak and opinionated, his wish was rather to lead 
a life of luxury and pleasure, and to be a patron of art, than to 
exert any political force. 

As to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, he already possessed 
the fair province of Burgundy, which John the Good had con- 
ferred upon him. To this he had added French Flanders, which 
Charles V had given him, and, by his marriage with Margaret of 
Flanders, heiress of the counties of Flanders, Burgundy, Artois, 
Nevers, and Rethel, he had become one of the most powerful 
princes in western Europe. Besides this, he took over the govern- 
ment of Normandy and Picardy, bought Charolais, and planned 
by the marriage of his sons John and Anthony, to add Hainaut, 

77 



78 CHARLES VI 

Holland, Brabant, Limbourg, and Luxemburg to his possessions. 
Bold and ambitious, he had all the resources and all the preten- 
sions of a king. His policy was as far-reaching and as persistent 
as that of the king himself. Allied to the most illustrious families 
of Europe, he had organized a vast administration, agents, coun- 
selors, and a court. Burgundy had its own government, its 
diplomacy, and its army ; its duke was a veritable sovereign, pre- 
senting everywhere, in his pleasures, as well as in his serious affairs, 
a great and imposing figure. After the death of his brother, the 
duke of Anjou, in 1384, he was the true master of the realm, and 
constantly endeavored to have the interests of Burgundy advanced 
before those of France. 

Such were the men called upon to govern the realm at the 
moment when the spirit of revolt, which was threatening through- 
out all Europe, was seriously embarrassing the realm of France. 

2. The Insurrection of 1382 (Maillotins).— The uncles of 
Charles VI began seeking popularity by suppressing all the taxes 
created since the time of Philip the Fair, and by bringing to trial 
for heresy the provost of Paris, Hugh Aubriot, whose harsh and 
energetic administration had roused against him much hostility ; but 
they could not get along without money, and the duke of Anjou 
decided to impose a tax of a twelfth upon all sales of merchandise. 
One day a crier, mounted upon horseback, rode up to the market 
place, announcing that a part of the king's silverware had been 
stolen, and that a large reward was promised to the person who 
should recover it. Then, when he saw the people assembled, he 
dug his spurs into his horse and shouted back that a new tax 
would be levied the next day. Later the collectors presented 
themselves again at the market-place, and one of them demanded 
a sou from a poor old woman who was selling water-cress ; he 
was dragged to the ground and covered with wounds. Imme- 
diately a riot broke out. The crowd rushed to the Hôtel de 
Ville, secured possession of a large number of lances, swords, and 
mallets, or maces of lead. From this latter circumstance the 
name " Maillotins " was given to the rebels. The farmers and 
the collectors of the tax were massacred ; but the popular fury 
soon subsided. The University of Paris interposed, and the 
young king promised pardon, contenting himself with having some 
of the leaders of the riot secretly thrown into the Seine. The 



THE WAR IN FLANDERS 79 

princes then secured terms for the Parisians, and the duke of 
Anjou left for Italy, where he lost his life two years later. This 
left the field free to the duke of Burgundy. 

While the capital was in revolt several towns in the realm also 
rose. The Langue d'Oc refused to recognize the sovereignty of 
the avaricious duke of Berry, and sent an appeal to the count de 
Foix, while the peasants àt the same time left their villages and 
took refuge in the w^oods. Under the name of " Tuchins " they 
carried on a guerrilla warfare of pillaging and violence through- 
out the whole province. At Rouen, when the duke of Anjou at- 
tempted to levy a tax on beverages and woolen cloth, the trades- 
people arose in revolt, and for four months riot ruled the town. 
The only thing that put it down was the arrival of a royal army 
and the punishment of the principal leaders. Similar demonstra- 
tions broke out in Rheims, Orléans, Chalons, Troyes, and Sens. 

3. The War in Flanders (1382).— What rendered these 
popular movements even more formidable was their coincidence 
with a revolt of the Flemish. The Flemish communes had taken 
up arras against their count, Louis de Mâle, in order to have 
their municipal franchises respected, and had placed at their head 
Philip van Artevelde, the son of the famous popular leader who 
had been assassinated in 1345. Compelled to take flight, Louis 
begged the support of his son-in-law, the duke of Burgundy, and 
the French knights against this ribald crowd who, as Froissart 
says, " threatened to destroy all chivalry and gentility." Philip 
had no difficulty in persuading Charles VI that the Flemish revolt 
otherwise would extend to Paris, and war was forthwith 
declared. 

The young king entered Flanders at the head of a powerful 
feudal army, and Van Artevelde offered battle near Roosebeke, at 
the head of forty thousand men, in 1382. The Flemish had 
tied themselves together so that they might not be driven back, but 
their spears could not reach the knights, who ran them through 
with their long lances. They were overwhelmed and left twenty- 
six thousand men dead upon the field. Intoxicated by these 
scenes of blood, Charles VI ordered the city of Courtrai to be 
sacked and burned. This by no means ended the war, for hos- 
tilities continued until the death of Louis de Mâle, but the duke 
of Burgundy, his heir, finally yielded to the heroism of the Flemish 



8o CHARLES VI 

cities, whose privileges he recognized in the treaty of Tournai 
in 1385. 

4. The Reaction in Paris (1383). — The victory of Roosebeke 
created a panic in Paris, and the townspeople, who had already 
entered into an understanding with the Flemish communes, at- 
tempted to oppose the royal army. On the nth of January 
when the king appeared before his capital, twenty thousand 
burghers ranged themselves in battle array upon the heights of 
Montmartre under pretext of doing him honor; but the con- 
stable, De Clisson, imperiously commanded them to lay down 
their arms and return to their lodgings. The king's men then 
broke through the barriers, burst open the gates, and entered as 
into a conquered city. " The young king rode on horseback, his 
lance upon his thigh, saying nothing, saluting no one, terrible and 
majestic" (Michelet). 

Vengeance was taken immediately. Three hundred of the 
prominent men of the city were arrested, and for two weeks there 
were hanged or thrown into the Seine those who had most com- 
promised themselves in the insurrection of the Maillotins. Even 
the faithful servitor of the monarchy, the Advocate General, 
Desmarets, was sent to his death, but, since the princes were more 
eager for the gold of the burghers than for their blood, when the 
Parisians assembled, enumerated their crimes, threw themselves 
at the feet of the king and implored his mercy, they were granted 
terms. According to Froissart the amount of the fines and the 
confiscations was more than nine hundred and sixty thousand 
florins of gold. Paris lost its provost of merchants, its aldermen, 
and its religious confraternities, and the gabelle and the aides which 
bore so heavily upon commodities were re-established. The other 
towns of the realm were struck equally hard. 

5. The Marmousets (1388-1392).— The king's uncles con- 
tinued to govern until 1388. The duke of Burgundy assembled 
a considerable fleet to attack England, but the expedition was 
delayed, and a storm and the English destroyed its vessels. After 
attacking with one hundred thousand men an ally of the English, 
the little duke of Guelders, who could scarcely raise six thousand 
soldiers, the French were obliged to beat an ignominious retreat. 
There were thus too many blunders, and the princes of the fleur-de- 
lis were overthrown. 



THE KING'S MADNESS 8i 

In a Great Council which was summoned by the archbishop of 
Rheims, Charles VI, who was then in his twenty-first year, de- 
clared that he would take the reins of the government into his 
own hands, and thanked his uncles for their services. He sum- 
moned before him the men who had been his father's counselors, 
and whom the great barons derisively called '' the IMarmousets " 
(monkeys). For four years these new ministers attempted to 
return to the policy of Charles V by assuring to the country peace 
at home and power abroad. They gave back to Paris its provost 
of merchants, to be named by the king, who chose the scholar, 
John Jouvenel des Ursins; published several wise ordinances for 
the reform of the finances; and signed a truce with England. 

The young king had all the qualities which charm and win. 
He was handsome, brave, and amiable, but he was unfortunately 
so foolishly fond of fêtes and of pleasure that everything served as 
a pretext for the organization of his enjoyments; in 1380 it was 
his entry to Paris, in 1385 the marriage of the count of Nevers, in 
1389 the coronation of the queen, Isabella of Bavaria. " He 
was open-handed and gave large sums of money to be distributed 
among the people," says Jouvenel des Ursins. As to the new 
queen of France, her entry into Paris was celebrated by magnifi- 
cent fêtes. Froissart and the contemporary chroniclers have de- 
scribed the splendid cortège which rolled from Saint-Denis to Paris, 
the painted and gilded litters, the richly caparisoned palfreys, the 
wonderful tapestries which draped the houses, and the fountains of 
milk and aromatic wine which spouted from every street corner. 
After these fêtes of insensate luxury, which called for an addi- 
tional increase of the taxes, Charles VI set out upon a journey to 
Avignon and the Langue d'Oc, which was made a still further pre- 
text for his wild merry-makings ; but in the midst of these public 
rejoicings great misfortunes were preparing for France. 

6. The King's Madness. — Among the counselors of the young 
king, the princes most dreaded the Constable, Oliver de Clisson, 
and a petty Angevin lord was made the instrument of their 
vengeance upon him. On June 13th, 1392, the Constable was 
returning from a fête given by the king in his Hôtel Saint-Pol, 
and was crossing the street. Forty bandits commanded by Peter 
de Crâon thereupon threw themselves upon him and unhorsed 
him. The Constable, dangerously wounded, fell against the door 



82 CHARLES VI 

of a baker's shop, and his assailants took flight. Charles VI, who 
loved Clisson, immediately roused himself and swore vengeance. 
Peter de Crâon had taken refuge in Brittany, whereupon the king 
called on the duke, John of Montfort, to surrender him, and 
upon his refusal declared war. 

Two months afterwards Charles took the field himself. As 
he was crossing the forest of Mans during the intense heat of 
summer, a man of evil aspect, clothed in a white mantle, and 
barefooted, threw himself on the bridle of the king's horse, cried, 
" King, ride no further, but return, for you are betrayed," and 
had to be struck down in order to make him let go his hold. 
Charles, profoundly moved, continued on his way. About noon, 
the army left the wood in order to deploy upon a great sandy plain, 
when a page half asleep let his lance fall on the helmet of a 
groom. At the clang of steel, Charles started up, drew his sword, 
and cried, " Out, out upon the traitors ! " Before he could be 
disarmed and bound he had killed or wounded several of the men 
of his escort. He had gone mad. It was said that sorcerers had 
cast a spell upon him. After 1392, he had only rare lucid mo- 
ments, and when he had a lapse of his reason he was simply a 
tool in the hands of the factions. During these crises he was kept 
in the Hôtel Saint-Pol. He recognized no one, not even the 
queen, and forgot his royal title, even his name, " Charles." To 
cure him recourse was had to the most ridiculous practices of 
sorcery, and to innumerable pilgrimages. Thus the king's mad- 
ness threatened to be even more fatal to France than his minority. 

7. The Dismissal of the Marmousets. — The princes of the 
fleur-de-lis at once resumed direction of affairs, although there 
were only two of them left, the duke of Berry and the duke of 
Burgundy. Their first care was to drive out the Marmousets, 
and Clisson was able to escape their vengeance only by seeking 
refuge in Brittany, while several others were thrown into the 
Bastile. The disorders of the early years of the king's reign 
began again, and with them the profligate waste of the financial re- 
sources of the kingdom. The uncles of the king banished the 
Jews from France forever, in order to take possession of their 
property. They attempted in vain to put an end to the schism 
which was dividing the Church, but they at least succeeded in 
obtaining a twenty-eight years' truce with England by marrying 



JOHN THE FEARLESS 83 

to Richard Ha daughter of Charles VI, with a dower of two 
hundred thousand francs. The princes used this truce only to 
organize a crusade against the infidel Turks, for which the most 
brilliant members of the nobility enrolled themselves under the 
leadership of John of Nevers, son of Philip of Burgundy; but the 
rash presumption of the French chivalry led to its complete 
annihilation by the army of the Sultan of Turkey, Bajazet, at 
Nicopolis (1396). 

While the unhappy king was deserted, and while the princes 
ruined France, Isabella of Bavaria acknowledged no interest but 
her pleasures. Queen of France at fourteen, and at first popular, 
she was as bad a queen as she was mother and wife. She cared 
only for Spanish minstrels, for collecting a large menagerie, and 
for setting new fashions. Sensual, gluttonous, and troubled with 
excessive fat, she was a docile instrument, first in the hands of 
the duke of Orléans, then of the duke of Burgundy, then of the 
English. 

8. John the Fearless and Louis of Orléans. — Philip the 
Bold remained all-powerful up to the time of his death in 1404, 
and his son, John the Fearless, hoped to inherit his father's 
influence in the government. Inasmuch as he had increased very 
considerably the paternal domain by his marriage with the heiress 
of Holland, he was easily the first personage in the realm after 
the king. Possessed of a keen intelligence, an alert mind, as able 
as he was audacious, a personal bravery that gave him the name 
of " the Fearless," heavy and massive in figure, violent and 
taciturn by disposition, this prince knew no scruple, and was 
capable of anything. He wished to be master of France ; but 
he met a worthy adversary in the duke of Orléans, brother of 
Charles VI. Louis, Duke of Orléans, was count of Valois and 
of Angouleme, Blois and Dunois, count of Vertus and pretender 
to the duchy of Milan by his marriage with Valentine Visconti. 
He had the most engaging qualities. A true man of the world, he 
was elegant, luxury-loving, fond of fine clothes and fine castles. 
Endowed with a facile and brilliant mind, knowing how to be 
eloquent upon occasion, the friend of letters and of artists, he was 
a true prince of the Renaissance; but these brilliant qualities were 
accompanied by many defects. Shallow and frivolous, he passed 
his life in fêtes and merry-makings, surrounded by his hounds and 



'^4 CHARLES VI 

his jesters. He ruined himself by gambling, never paid his debts, 
and constantly demanded money from his brother in order to meet 
his expenses. He furnished an example of every scandal, and drew 
Isabella of Bavaria into a life of luxury and dissipation. 

What rendered the rivalry of the two princes formidable was 
that the shrewdness of John the Fearless managed to impart to 
it a political aspect. The duke of Orléans had imposed heavy taxes 
upon the people, and was extremely unpopular. The duke of 
Burgundy, who was glad to represent himself as the defender of 
popular interests, protested against the establishment of a new 
tax, and left the capital. Following this adroit move, the hope 
of the Parisians turned toward him, and Charles VI in one of 
his lucid moments hastened to have him recalled. John was in- 
stalled at the Louvre, and appeared to rule as master (1405). 
A civil war was upon the point of breaking out when the duke 
of Bourbon and the duke of Berry intervened, and had the peace 
of Vincennes signed between the two rivals, who kissed and took 
communion together. 

9. The Murder of the Duke of Orléans (1407).— Three 
days afterward, the duke of Orléans had just paid a visit to Queen 
Isabella at the Hôtel Montague. He crossed the street and 
mounted a mule, followed by two grooms and four or five 
valets on foot carrying torches. Near the Barbette Gate a group 
of about twenty armed men threw themselves upon him and 
cried, " Murder, murder! " '' I am the Duke of Orléans," cried 
the brother of the king. " You are the man we want," responded 
the assassins, and pierced him with wounds. Then they fled after 
having set fire to the house from which they had come. 

The next day the duke of Burgundy went to sprinkle holy-water 
upon the coffin of the duke of Orléans at the church of the 
Blancs-Manteaux. He held a corner of the mortuary hangings 
and wept at the funeral ; but, when the provost of Paris declared 
that he could find the murderer if the houses of the princes might 
be searched, John became panic-stricken, turned pale, and taking 
the duke of Berry to one side said, " I am the man, the devil 
tempted me." Then, mounting a horse, he escaped to his estates 
in Flanders. 

But his remorse and his fright speedily vanished. At the head 
of eight hundred noblemen and a small army he made formal 



THE CABOCHIENS 85 

entry into the capital, where the Parisians received him with cries 
of "Noël!" This was the shout of welcome which was made 
to signalize the entry of the kings of France. Not only did he 
obtain from Charles VI letters of pardon, but he had the Fran- 
ciscan Jean Petit pronounce a pedantic sermon, in which he 
maintained that " it was right, reasonable, and proper to kill a 
tyrant," and that the murder of the duke of Orléans had been 
*' perpetrated for the greatest good of the person of the king, his 
children, and the whole realm." Every one at Paris declared 
himself to be entirely in favor of the Burgundian, and Duke John, 
the conqueror of the people of Liège at Hasbain, increased his 
popularity every day by restoring to the Parisians all their fran- 
chises. He compelled the sons of his victim to sign with him the 
secret peace of Chartres (1409), and concluded on the nth of 
November a secret treaty of alliance with the queen. He was now 
real master of the realm. 

10. The Armagnacs and the Burgundians. — Civil war very 
soon broke out, however. The enemies of the duke of Burgundy, 
chiefly the dukes of Berry, of Bourbon, and of Brittany, made 
themselves the defenders of the two sons of Louis of Orléans, 
Charles, Duke of Orléans, and John, Count of Angoulême. They 
grouped themselves around Count Bernard VH of Armagnac, who 
had married his daughter to Charles of Orléans. For this reason 
they were called the "Armagnacs," and chose for their distinctive 
badge a white hood and a white scarf. The partisans of John the 
Fearless, the " Burgundians," adopted a blue hat with the red 
cross of Saint Andrew. It was not simply a quarrel of families 
and of factions, but an actual war of races, for the population of 
the South threw themselves with zeal into this terrible struggle 
which became an atrocious mêlée without quarter. 

France, as a whole, was divided into two camps. The 
Armagnacs wished at any price to take the management of the 
affairs of the kingdom out of the hands of the duke of Burgundy, 
and already their bands had reached the walls of Paris when the 
University intervened, and had the peace of Bicetre signed ( 1410). 

11. The Cabochiens. — It was nothing but a passing truce, 
however, since the Burgundian party held Paris. This city of 
three hundred thousand souls offered conditions extremely favor- 
able to a great popular uprising. The recollections of 1356 and 



86 CHARLES VI 

1357 were still vivid, and there v^^ere in the University, as there 
were in the guilds, men who in their desire for political reforms 
were inclined to bring about a revolution. Among the Parisian cor- 
porations the most powerful at that time was that of the butchers. 
Installed about Saint-Jacques-of-the-Butchery, the butchers had at 
their service quite an army of helpers, killers, and skinners. They 
were thus persons of considerable importance in the commerce of 
Paris, Followed by their formidable clientèle, they were ready to 
commit, or to allow to be committed, the worst act of violence. 

The duke of Burgundy returned to Paris, organized this power- 
ful corporation of butchers with the support of Simon Caboche, 
who gave his name to the Parisian faction. The " Cabochiens " 
immediately dominated the capital. The prisons were filled with 
suspects, the rebels not even respecting the hotel of the Dauphin 
Charles. Penetrating there under arms, they arrested the greater 
part of his followers, imprisoning the Advocate General, Jouvenel 
des Ursins, and the famous theologian, John Gerson. 

12. The University of Paris. — Side by side with this demo- 
cratic element, however, there appeared a less violent element: 
the University of Paris. With its four faculties, its forty-five col- 
leges, its two hundred regents, its sixteen hundred students, its 
innumerable population of servitors, agents, copyists, writers, 
librarians, parchment-makers, and illuminators, the University 
occupied a position of great importance. It was ** the dear and 
beloved daughter of the king, the permanent council of Gaul, 
the light of Europe." In place of confining itself to lectures and 
examinations, it had participated in all great contemporary events, 
intervened in the quarrel concerning the Schism, and attempted to 
bring about peace and union in ChurcTi and State. 

With its spirit of democracy and equality, the University took 
the part of the reformers. There was thus an alliance of two 
elements, the one, the most coarse and the most brutal, the other, 
the most elevated and politic — a union of the people and the Uni- 
versity, the one securing its ends by means of violence, the other, 
by means of words. It was this combination which produced the 
Cabochien Ordinance. 

13. The Great Cabochien Ordinance (1413). — A treaty, 
concluded at Auxerre on the 27th of August, 141 2, had put an 
end to the first period of hostility between the Armagnacs and 



THE GREAT CABOCHIEN ORDINANCE 87 

the Burgundlans. The Estates General, more numerous than 
before, met at Paris at the end of January, 141 3, and laid the 
responsibility for taking up the matter of reform upon a com- 
mission. 

As a consequence of the riots which had filled the months of 
April and May, the Parlement registered on the 26th of May, the 
ordinance called Cabochien, which had been prepared by the 
moderate party of the University and the burghers. 

The ordinance of 141 3 did not have the political character of 
that of 1357. It concerned itself entirely with the administration, 
and did not touch upon the executive and legislative power of 
the crown. The greatest space in the ordinance was reserved for 
the financial reorganization. Out of two hundred and fift3^-eight 
articles, one hundred and fifty-three were devoted to the finances. 
At the head of the financial hierarchy there continued to be the 
Chamber of Accounts; subordinate to this, the accounts of the 
domain, the war treasury, and the court of aids. The king was 
not to be permitted to alienate any part of the domain, nor even to 
diminish the value of the coinage. With reference to the judiciary, 
the ordinance insisted upon the principle of election. Conforming 
to a practice already established for several years, Parlement chose 
its memh^rs in the presence of delegates from the Grand Council. 
It was also to choose the provost of Paris, the bailiffs, the seneschals, 
and other officers of justice. In a w^ord the Parlement was placed 
at the head of the judicial hierarchy. This administrative power, 
the autonomy given to Parlement, was the great innovation in the 
Cabochien Ordinance, inasmuch as it assumed the position of 
exercising a control over royalty. 

While the reformers were engaged in re-establishing on a 
firm basis the financial situation of the realm, by suppressing the 
abuses which had disorganized the administration of justice, the 
household of the king and the central government, they sought as 
well to ameliorate the sufferings of the poor and the humble, and 
to insure security and tranquillity to the people. They committed 
themselves to the position of protecting the poor against the ex- 
actions of the royal officers and the tyranny of the seigneurs, de- 
claring that rural customs especially were to be respected, and 
that the peasants might arm themselves and proceed against those 
who had robbed them, that they should have the right of pursuing 



88 CHARLES VI 

wolves, of destrojâng the new rabbit-warrens made by the nobles, 
and of refusing ail tolls demanded without authority. 

Unhappily the moderate party who made the ordinance were 
not able to enforce it, inasmuch as their wise prescriptions lacked 
sanction, for they scarcely fitted the epoch of troublous times in 
which they were elaborated. They were not enforced indeed, 
but they served later as a program for all attempts at administra- 
tive reform undertaken by the crown. 

14. The Excesses of the Cabochiens and the Armagnacs 
(1413). — At that moment the Burgundians learned that the 
Armagnacs, united with the English, were marching upon the 
capital. Immediately, Paris was a prey to the violences of the 
Cabochiens. The prisons were gorged with the Armagnacs who 
had been arrested and the scaffold remained permanently erected. 
The upper merchant class joined with the University and the 
Parlement to put an end to the bloody domination of the butchers 
and opened the gates of the capital to the Armagnacs; but they 
did not fare better than their adversaries, for the Armagnacs 
struck down without pity the leaders of the populace and abolished 
the Cabochien Ordinance three months after its promulgation. 
Thus John the Fearless was again compelled to withdraw to his 
estates in Flanders. 

15. The Resumption of the Hundred Years' ^^ar. — To 
the civil war there was now added a foreign war. Henry of 
Monmouth, son of Henry IV of Lancaster, had just ascended 
the throne of England under the name of Henry V, In order to 
flatter the English pride by new triumphs, that able politician re- 
newed the pretensions of Edward III to the crown of France and 
demanded the execution of the treaty of Brétigny. He easily 
obtained from the English Parliament six thousand men-at-arms, 
and twenty-four thousand archers, with whom he landed near 
Harfleur, August 14th, 141 5; but he lost one-third of his army 
in taking that town and, feeling himself incapable of continuing 
the campaign, he resolved to go into winter quarters at Calais. 
He easily crossed the Somme and advanced into Picardy, where he 
was attacked by a great feudal army commanded by the Constable 
d'Albret, brother of Bernard of Armagnac. 

16. Agincourt (1415). — The French army numbered more 
than fifty thousand men, while the English army scarcely had 



THE TYRANNY OF THE ARMAGNACS 89 

fifteen thousand, and Henry V seemed lost. On the 24th of 
October, in the evening, the English were camped in the small 
village of Maisoncelle, the French near Agincourt. The night 
was cold and stormy. Confusion and disorder reigned among the 
French knights, whose only thought was to sing and carouse. 
During the same time the English were preparing their arms. 
They dried their bowstrings under their caps, placed the most 
godly soldiers in the front of their lines, made confession and took 
communion. When the day broke the French army was formed 
in three thick battles, drawn up the one behind the other on a nar- 
row plain, where the cavalry could not deploy. When the order 
to charge was given, the horses, mired in the mud almost up to 
their knees, could not be moved. The archers of Henry V riddled 
the confused mass with arrows, and men armed with knives slipped 
in among the horsemen and butchered them without pity. It 
was a terrible carnage. Ten thousand men-at-arms, seven princes, 
and one hundred and twenty lords bannerets remained on the 
field of battle. Fifteen hundred prisoners, among them the dukes 
of Orléans and of Bourbon, fell into the hands of the enemy. 

17. The Tyranny of the Armagnacs. — Nevertheless, the 
power remained in the hands of the Armagnacs. Bernard, who 
had been given the dignity of Constable after the death of his 
brother, killed at Agincourt, exercised almost absolute power in 
Paris. Keeper of the king's person, he attached closely to himself 
the young Charles, third son of Charles VI, who had become heir- 
presumptive to the crown by the death of his two elder brothers. 
Over against this regular government stood the rival government 
of Isabella of Bavaria. The queen, given up to debauchery, con- 
ceived an implacable hatred for her son, the Dauphin. She took 
the title of Regent of the Realm and joined John the Fearless, 
who carried on the war in the environs of Paris. Bernard of 
Armagnac was unable to maintain himself, except by terror, and 
the most sinister rumors spread abroad. People whispered that 
Armagnac, " that devil under the skin of a man," was preparing 
to massacre all those who were not of his party, and that the 
cloth which he had seized in the shops of the merchants was not 
at all, as it was said, to make tents and pavilions, but that he meant 
to sew up all the women in sacks and throw them into the river. 
The Constable, it was added, had sworn rather to sell Paris to the 



90 CHARLES VI 

English than to allow the Burgundians to enter. These rumors 
easily spread. The levying of new imposts, and a new altera- 
tion of the coinage, rendered the irritation general and precipitated 
the fall of the Armagnacs. 

18. The Triumph of the Burgundians (1418). — A young 
townsman, son of a rich iron merchant, had been injured and 
beaten by the servants of the Dauphin. He conspired with several 
companions and, resolving to deliver the city over to the Bur- 
gundians, entered into relations with the governor of Pontoise, stole 
from his father the keys of the Saint-Germain gate, which he was 
supposed to guard, and introduced the soldiers of John the Fear- 
less into the city the 29th of May, 141 8. All the old partisans 
of the Cabochien faction ran together with the cry, " Long live 
Burgundy! " and set up a banner bearing the cross of Saint 
Andrew. Then began a terrible massacre. In a few days more 
than fifteen hundred people were butchered in the prisons of 
Paris. Among the victims was Constable Armagnac, and the 
butchers of the executioner, Capeluche, took from his dead body 
a broad strip of skin in order that he might bear in death as in 
life the white scarf of the Armagnacs. On the 14th of July 
John the Fearless made his entry into the city with Isabella of 
Bavaria. He indorsed all that had taken place and believed that 
the disorders were at an end. They began again at once, however, 
and the duke was obliged to give his hand publicly to Capeluche. 
In order to free himself from this embarrassment he sent these cut- 
throats to Montlhery against an imaginary band of Armagnacs, 
closed the gates of the city, and cut off the head of Capeluche. 

19. The Assassination of John the Fearless. — England 
adroitly profited by these discords. Henry V took possession of 
lower Normandy and laid siege to Rouen. The city defended it- 
self heroically for eight months, but had to capitulate on account 
of famine. 

Nevertheless, John the Fearless planned to use the internal 
anarchy in order to carry out his vast designs. The audacious 
Burgundian even dared to raise his eyes to the crown. Not 
having been able to secure possession of the person of the Dauphin, 
whom Tanguy du Chastel had put in a secure place, he turned 
to the king of England ; but Henry V, proud of his success, de- 
manded the hand of a daughter of Charles VI with Guienne, 



THE TREATY OF TROYES 91 

Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine for a dower. 
John then sought an understanding with the Armagnacs. He 
and the Dauphin were reconciled on the 7th of July at Pouilly, 
between Melun and Corbeil; but on the lOth of September, 1419, 
a new interview between the two princes took place at the bridge 
of Montereau. Here, suddenly, apparently without premeditation, 
Tanguy du Chastel and the followers of the Dauphin threw them- 
selves upon the duke of Burgundy and killed him. The assassina- 
tion of Louis of Orléans was avenged, but avenged by a crime 
which was to have terrible consequences. 

20. The Treaty of Troyes (1420).— Philip the Good, son of 
John the Fearless, immediately put himself at the head of the Bur- 
gundian party, with the ardent desire of taking his revenge on 
the Dauphin at any price. On the 21st of May, 1420, Philip and 
Isabella signed the treaty of Troyes w^ith England. The queen 
even proclaimed the illegitimacy of her son herself, declared the 
Dauphin stripped of all his rights to the crown, and transferred 
them to Catherine of France, daughter of Charles VI, who was 
to marry Henry V. After the death of Charles VI the realm of 
France was to belong to the king of England and to his heirs 
forever. Until the death of Charles VI Henry was to have the 
title of Regent. Charles VI, Henry V, and the duke of Burgundy 
agreed that they would not treat with " the so-called Dauphin." 

This monstrous treaty which surrendered France to the English 
was received at Paris with joy. The Parlement and the University 
approved of it; all seemed to support Henry V, who possessed 
himself of the country situated north of the Loire, while the 
Dauphin sought an asylum in the provinces of the south. Already 
the king of England was preparing to push hostilities actively when 
he died at Vincennes, leaving to a child of eight months two crowns, 
both of which he was in time to lose. Several weeks afterwards the 
unhappy Charles VI passed away at the Hôtel Saint-Pol at the age 
of fifty-four. Every one in France mourned the poor king who had 
borne for fortj'-two years the crown to his own misfortune and 
that of his people. 



CHAPTER VII 
CHARLES VII AND JOAN OF ARC 

1. Charles VII and Henry VI. — Henry V died August 31st, 
1422; on the 2 1 St of October Charles VI died at the Hôtel Saint- 
Pol. When the body of that unhappy king was lowered into the 
tomb at Saint-Denis, the herald-at-arms cried, " God have pity and 
mercy upon the most high and most excellent Prince Charles, 
sixth of the name, our natural and sovereign lord." Then he 
resumed, *' God give long life to Henry, by the grace of God, 
king of France and of England, our sovereign lord." At the 
same time, at Mehun-sur-Yèvre in Berry, the gentlemen remain- 
ing faithful to the French cause saluted with acclamations King 
Charles VII. 

The situation in France had never appeared so desperate. The 
realm was divided between two hostile kings. The one, Henry VI, 
was but a child in his cradle, but there supported him Paris, the 
Île-de-France, Normandy, Burgundy, Flanders, Artois, Picardy, 
Champagne, Guienne, and Gascony. That is to say, he possessed 
the greater part of France, which was governed by the duke of Bed- 
ford, and he ruled over England, which was intrusted to the duke 
of Gloucester. Supported by Isabella of Bavaria and Philip the 
Good, he had been recognized as king by the University and by the 
Parlement of Paris. The other, Charles VII, the '* King of 
Bourges," as he was called, to distinguish him from his rival, the 
" King of Paris," was a young man of nineteen. Without ques- 
tion his weakness and his inertia have been exaggerated, but it is 
certain that Charles VII often changed. " There were in him," 
as Beaucourt says, " as many different men as there were periods 
in his reign." At this time the " King of Bourges " seemed 
scarcely equal to the task which confronted him. Defiant himself, 
suspicious and restless, he remained with his forces quartered in the 
towns of the Loire, surrounded by mediocre and unworthy 
favorites. 

92 



THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS 93 

2. The Sad Condition of France. — France was, besides, ex- 
hausted and apathetic, since every plague seemed to have fallen 
upon the country. The nobility had been decimated by battle, 
the bourgeoisie suffered the ruin of their commerce and industry, 
and the country people w^ere terribly oppressed by the bands which 
harried the land. The treasury was empty. Charles was obliged 
to sell his jewels, to have the sleeves of his old doublets repaired, 
and to do without new shoes, and certainly when Charles' cap- 
tains came to visit him, they did not always find good cheer at 
the royal table. 

3. The Battle of Verneuil (1424).— Nevertheless, after 
being crowned at Poitiers, Charles VII assumed the offensive. He 
counted upon the support of foreign mercenaries: the Scotch, the 
Lorrainers, and the Lombards, whom he preferred to the French 
troops. The French attempted to reopen communications with 
what few followers Charles VII had saved north of the Loire; but 
they were beaten at Cravant-sur- Yonne and at Verneuil. This 
double disaster produced serious results. The French troops who 
were operating in the north had to evacuate the country and to 
abandon to the English the places which the French still held in 
Champagne and in Picardy. The royal troops received orders to 
remain quartered in the towns and in the strong castles, and the 
Anglo-Burgundians thus became masters of all the country north 
of the Loire. 

4. The Siege of Orléans (1428). — During this time the duke 
of Bedford, by means of generous concessions, attempted to renew 
his alliance with the duke of Burgundy. Then he renewed the war 
which had been dragging on for four years. In the month of 
October, 1428, he resolved finally to carry the line of the Loire 
behind which the *' King of Bourges " was protecting himself. 
A strong army of ten thousand men, under the command of the 
earl of Salisbury, was sent to lay siege to Orléans. That city was 
the key of the south. Salisbury quickly took Jargeau, Meung, and 
Beaugency, and established his camp under the walls of the city. 
The town of Orléans had massive ramparts and a deep ditch, and 
had laid a general tax for organizing the defense. The inhabi- 
tants were divided into thirty-four companies, who were to guard 
the walls and the towers, and a call was sent out to all the ad- 
venturers who were fighting on the Loire. La Hire, Xaintrailles, 



94 CHARLES VII AND JOAN OF ARC 

Dunois, and the Sire de Villars then entered the place with seven 
or eight hundred picked soldiers, and when the English attacked 
the city, the entire population, even women and children, appeared 
on the ramparts. Salisbury experienced the greatest difficulty in 
taking possession of the towers of Tournelles, which defended the 
left bank of the river, and one day while he was directing an 
attack upon one of the besieged places, he was killed by a bullet. 
The English, directed by Talbot, Earl of Suffolk, and William 
de la Pole, nevertheless, continued the siege operations. As they 
were unable to take the place by assault, they surrounded it with 
a circle of fortified posts and planned to reduce it by hunger. 
In the month of February, 14*29, the count of Clermont, who had 
got together a relieving force at Blois, tried to head off a convoy 
of flour and fish which Sir John Falstaff was bringing to the 
English army, and attacked the enemy near Rouvray. The Eng- 
lish improvised a barrier of wagons and kegs of herrings, which 
the French artillery easily overthrew; but the horsemen of the 
count of Clermont stopped the firing, rashly hurled themselves 
upon the enemy, and were crushed. Such was the " day of 
herrings " which threw Orléans into consternation. The be- 
sieged, abandoned by a great number of gentlemen, attempted to 
negotiate with the duke of Burgundy, and to surrender to him, 
but the duke of Bedford replied, " I do not intend to beat the 
bushes in order that some one else may take the birds." It seemed 
as if a miracle only could save the city. 

5. The Awakening of National Sentiment. — If France 
seemed fallen into the abyss, if royalty seemed incapable even of 
dying with glory, the love of country, a profound and irresistible 
feeling was beginning to stir the entire nation. When the 
feudal régime extended from the Alps to the Pyrenees, while one 
could indeed love his city, his lordship, or his province, it was 
difficult for any one to conceive the idea of a French fatherland. 
The Albigensian War showed very clearly that between the 
north and the south of France there was no sentiment of solidarity. 
Very slowly indeed was the Capetian monarchy able to secure 
recognition for the idea of a national unity, superior to feudal 
divisions. The literature of the chansons de geste strengthened 
it, to be sure, by celebrating " the fair land of France " with allu- 
sions to the monarchy of Charlemagne; but it was essentially by 



JOAN OF ARC 95 

means of a struggle against the foreigner and by the sufferings 
which accompanied it that the French came to feel that they had 
a fatherland to love and to defend. In the presence of the for- 
eigner who threatened them in their independence, the burghers, 
the knights, and the common people knew that they did not want to 
become English. 

In the midst of her desperate struggles France became conscious 
of herself. The idea of the fatherland (patria) little by little 
took form. The word to express this idea was lacking and the 
chronicler, Jean Chartier, borrowed one from the Latin and 
naturalized it in the French vocabulary. For a long time the 
saying had been repeated that the realm, lost by a w^oman, would 
be saved by a woman. A visionary, Marie d'Avignon, had re- 
lated to Charles VII that she had seen armies in a dream, and 
that these armies were led by a young girl who was to deliver the 
realm of France. The enchanter, Merlin, the great seer of the 
Middle Ages, it was said, had predicted the coming of a young 
girl who should tread the English archers under her feet. It was 
then that Joan of Arc made her appearance. 

6. Joan of Arc (1412-1431). — Joan of Arc was born January 
6th, 1 41 2, at Domrémy in the territory of France, on the frontier 
of Champagne and Lorraine. Her father was Jaques d'Arc, her 
mother, Isabella Romee. They were peasants in easy circum- 
stances and their cottage has been religiously preserved to the 
present time. As a child she received the usual education of a 
peasant of her day. Spending her time in sewing and spinning, 
she drove the animals to the field, and devoted herself to house- 
hold duties. In the village she heard the recital of the sinister 
events which were then taking place in France: the country 
crushed, the French defeated, the Burgundians traitors to their 
country, and the King of Bourges wandering from city to city 
across his realm. She grew up serious and reserved, rarely taking 
part in the games of her companions, dreaming at the foot of a 
venerable beech-tree where the old tales located the abode of the 
fairies, or in the wood of Chesnu, whence, according to legend, 
the savior of the realm chould appear. 

Nowhere did the national sentiment have more vitality than on 
that extreme frontier of France on the banks of the upper Meuse, 
where La Hire had fought for the cause of the Dauphin. While 



96 CHARLES VII AND JOAN OF ARC 

the inhabitants of the right bank of the river, which belonged to 
the duchy of Lorraine, held to the cause of the Burgundians, 
those of the left bank belonging to Champagne remained faithful 
to Charles VII. Joan of Arc had taken part in the struggles 
of which the banks of the Meuse had been the theater. She 
heard of the predictions, current among the superstitious popula- 
tion, which foretold that a woman should deliver the realm. All 
over Europe, torn as it was by civil and religious struggles, by 
plagues of all kinds, there was at that time an outburst of mysticism 
and of popular religious exaltation. The piety of Joan of Arc, 
her pity for her native land suffering under the evils which she 
had witnessed, the very locality in which she lived, which was 
stirred by the fever of patriotism, all contributed to give birth 
in her to the most extraordinary of callings. 

One day in the summer of the year 1425, Joan was alone in 
her father's garden near the church. She saw a blinding light and 
heard a voice which said, *' Joan, be a good and obedient child. 
Go often to church." Another day she heard the voice again and 
saw a radiant figure. " I am," said the apparition, " the Arch- 
angel Michael. I am come to command you in the name of the 
Lord to go to France, to aid the Dauphin, in order that through 
you he may recover his realm." " Sire," she responded, trembling, 
" I am but a poor girl, I do not know how to ride or to lead 
men-at-arms." The voice replied, "You are to go and find 
Monsieur Baudricourt, captain of Vaucouleurs, and he will con- 
duct you to the king. Saint Catherine and Saint Marguerite will 
assist you." After this the apparitions succeeded one another 
without interruption. The voices became more insistent. Joan 
heard them everywhere, in the sound of the church bells, in the 
murmur of the woods, and in the bubbling of the fountain at Fées. 
For three years she resisted. Her father, to whom she had de- 
cided to make confession, declared that he would rather drown 
her with his own hands than to see her living in the midst of men- 
at-arms. In 1428 the country was again pillaged by a Burgun- 
dian company, and Joan hesitated no longer, but obtained per- 
mission to spend some time at the home of one of her uncles, who 
brought her to Baudricourt. The captain, to whom she imparted 
her mission, spoke of sending her back to her father, " well 
whipped," or of having her exorcised ; but Joan persisted. " Be- 



RELIEF OF ORLÉANS 97 

fore mid Lent," she said, " I must be in the presence of the king. 
I have vowed to present myself there if I wear my legs out to 
the knees." Her faith triumphed over all obstacles. The people 
of Vaucouleurs contributed to equip her as a man-at-arms. Joan 
cut off her long brown hair, exchanged her rough peasant's petti- 
coat for man's clothing and a hauberk, and on the 13th of 
February, 1429, followed by a small escort, she departed for 
Chinon. 

7. Joan at Chinon. — In eleven days the small troop covered 
one hundred and fifty leagues across a country infested by brigands 
and the enemy. ** Fear nothing," said Joan to her companions, 
" God shows me the way. It is for that that I was born." Finally 
they came to Chinon, where Charles consented to give her an 
audience. The king, simply clad, mingled in the crowd of 
courtiers; but she went directly to him, and respectfully embraced 
his knees. ** I am not the king," said Charles. " Gentle Prince," 
responded Joan, *' you are, and none else. I am called Jehanne la 
Pucelle; the King of Heaven makes known to you, through me, 
that you shall be anointed and crowned in the city of Rheims, 
and you shall be lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who are the 
King of France." Then she took him to one side, reassured him 
upon the doubts which had troubled him since the treaty of 
Troyes, and told him that he was indeed the rightful heir to the 
crown; but if Charles VII declared that Joan had won his con- 
fidence, the clergy were by no means convinced. They made the 
poor peasant girl appear before a council of doctors and theologians, 
whom she disconcerted by the naïveté of her responses and by her 
supreme confidence. It was decided to intrust her with a small 
troop to convoy provisions to Orléans. She wrote a letter to the 
duke of Bedford in which she summoned him to quit the realm 
and announced to the English that she had been sent by God to 
drive them completely out of France. 

8. Relief of Orléans (May 8th, 1429).— On the 29th of April 
Joan of Arc entered Orléans to the chant of Veni Creator, bearing 
in her hand her white standard, embroidered with fleur-de-lis of 
gold and the words '' Jesus Maria/' which she had taken for her 
device, and wearing at her side the miraculous sword which she 
had found behind the altar of Saint Catherine de Fierbois. The 
English were demoralized by the fatigue of a long winter siege, 



98 CHARLES VII AND JOAN OF ARC 

by desertions, by the death of Salisbury, and by the defection of 
the duke of Burgundy, who had withdrawn his troops. The 
people of Orléans, on the other hand, were filled with confidence. 
What was needed most in the royal army was discipline, order, 
and unity. Joan transformed it. She reduced the rough men- 
at-arms to discipline, made them give up their quarrels and their 
debaucheries, and did not permit even La Hire to swear except *' by 
his baton." At the same time she inspired in every one her own 
profound confidence and her enthusiastic patriotism. On the 4th 
of May, the besieged, under the leadership of Joan, took the 
redoubt Saint-Loup, which commanded the course of the river. 
On the 6th she perceived that the enemy had concentrated his 
troops upon the left bank of the Loire, in the redoubts of Augus- 
tins and of Tournelles. The Maid planned to drive them from 
this position. For two days she led the French in their attack 
upon the position of the enemy, herself fixed the scaling ladder 
upon the ramparts, and was wounded in the shoulder by a bolt from 
an arquebus. Not at all daunted she resumed the assault and 
ended by taking the English position. On the 8th of May, 
Talbot, Earl of Suffolk, gave up the siege, abandoning his can- 
non, baggage, and munitions of war. 

9. Coronation of Charles VII (1429). — Joan had accom- 
plished the first part of her mission; but Charles VII had still to be 
conducted to Rheims in order to have him anointed King of 
France. By bestowing upon him the prestige of legitimacy, the 
coronation would give him an immense advantage over his young 
competitor, Henry VI. The enterprise presented many difficulties, 
however. On May 13th she set out to find the king at Tours, but 
the counselors of Charles VII wished first to take the fortified 
places on the Loire. Joan gave way, took Jargeau, Meung, 
Beaugency, and won the victory of Patay, where Talbot was 
taken prisoner. There was general enthusiasm following this, 
and the king decided to set out for Rheims with an army of 
twelve thousand men. They left Guienne the 28th of June, passed 
through Auxerre, which belonged to the duke of Burgundy, and 
occupied Troyes and Chalons without a blow. On July i6th 
Rheims opened its gates and the next day the consecration took 
place in Notre-Dame at Rheims according to the ancient rites. 
During the ceremony Joan stood at the foot of the altar having 



CAPTIVITY OF JOAN OF ARC 99 

in her hand her fleur-de-lis standard. Then she threw herself 
weeping upon her knees before Charles. " Noble king," she said, 
" now is the pleasure of God performed which sought that you 
should come to Rheims to receive your proper coronation, showing 
by it that you are the true king and the one to whom the realm 
should belong." From this time on the renown of Joan was 
unbounded. The soldiers carried banners like hers, the people 
blessed her with their shoutings, carried medallions of her effigy, 
and placed her statues in the churches. As to Joan, in spite of 
the fact that the contrary has been frequently asserted, she did 
not at all consider her mission ended. She wished to be further 
instrumental in bringing the king into his capital. 

10. Captivity of Joan of Arc. — Joan would have preferred 
to march upon Paris, but the counselors of Charles VII per- 
suaded her to capture first some of the small places which barred 
the way. Everywhere the royal army was received with tre- 
mendous enthusiasm. Nevertheless, the duke of Bedford re- 
doubled his activity. He came to an understanding with the 
duke of Burgundy, demanded help from Cardinal Henry of 
Winchester, and fortified Paris. In derision of the Maid he had 
a white standard made with his own image, bearing a distaff and 
the device, *' Now let the beauty come." When the royal army 
appeared under the walls of the capital it was too late. The attack 
failed, and Joan was wounded by a shot from an arquebus at the 
spot where her statue stands today. 

Compelled to beat a retreat, the Maid proceeded to carry on 
war in Berry under the orders of the Sire d'Albret and took 
Saint Pierre and La Moustier. She failed before La Charité 
and learned then that the duke of Burgundy, who had been named 
Lieutenant General by Bedford, had just laid siege to Compiègne. 
Joan abruptly left Charles VII, proceeded at once to Lagny, and 
to Melun, beat Franquet d'Arras and threw herself into Com- 
piègne. Her desire was to defend the population against the 
Burgundians. On the 23d of May, 1430, she organized a 
sortie which failed, and when she tried to return to the town, she 
found the barrier closed. Her costume marked her out to her 
assailants, and she fell into the hands of Wandonne, a Flemish 
knight in the service of John of Luxemburg, who conducted her 
as a prisoner to Margny. 



100 CHARLES VII AND JOAN OF ARC 

The capture of Joan produced unbounded joy among the 
English. They regarded her as a sorceress and believed that the 
charm which had changed their victories into disasters w^ould now 
be broken, and that France was captive with Joan. " They would 
not have given her up for London," says Martial d'Auvergne. 
" A great many among them affirmed upon the most sacred oaths," 
says the historian, Thomas Basin, ** that when they heard the 
name of the Maid, or when they saw her standard, they suddenly 
lost strength and courage, and were able neither to bend their 
bows nor to strike the enemy." Abandoned by Charles VII, who 
believed her from now on useless to him, and who did nothing to 
save her, she was sold to the English, with the consent of Philip 
the Good, by John of Luxemburg in return for ten thousand livres 
of gold. 

IL Her Trial. — Lacking any good pretext for bringing Joan 
to trial, the English accused her of sorcery and of heresy, and 
inasmuch as the cognizance of these matters belonged to the 
clergy, the University of Paris proposed to have a church trial for 
her. The Cardinal of Winchester, however, uncle of Henry VI, 
who had come to take a hand in the tutelage of his nephew, 
sought to reconcile the appearance of justice with his desire for 
vengeance by demanding a judgment of the Maid by Pierre 
Cauchon. He was a celebrated doctor of canon law who had al- 
ready been associated with all the excess of the Cabochiens, had 
become bishop of Beauvais, had been driven out of that town by 
the inhabitants because of his attachment to England, and aspired 
to the archbishopric of Rouen. Joan had been taken in his dio- 
cese. Cauchon compelled the church of Rouen and the Inquisition 
to let him form a tribunal composed of Norman beneficiaries and 
of young theologians from the University of Paris, all devoted 
friends of the English and mortal enemies of the king of France. 
The trial was conducted with the most profound perfidy by 
Cauchon and the Cardinal of Winchester, who ably drew upon the 
laws and the decretals which composed the inquisitorial law. 
The University would have withdrawn the trial to Paris, but 
Winchester was not sufficiently sure of the capital. He had 
Joan sent to the castle of Rouen, where she was imprisoned in 
an iron cage with chains around her neck, upon her feet, and 
upon her hands, and where she was subjected to an atrocious 



HER TRIAL loi 

system of intimidation. Night and day the soldiers watched by 
her side, and wore her out with their insolence and their bru- 
talities. 

The trial began on the 2ist of February, 1431. Broken by 
the privations of her harsh captivity, deprived of counsel and of 
a lawyer, the simple Maid was the more admirable before her 
subtle and crafty judges, who sought to entangle her and to 
provoke a compromising answer. " Joan," said one, " do you be- 
lieve that you are in a state of grace? " The question was per- 
fidious: for had she said that she was assured of grace, she would 
have been declared a heretic. " If I am not in a state of grace, 
may God put me into it," she responded. " If I am in it, may 
God maintain me in it." *' You have said, * I will destroy the 
power of the English, it is for that that I was sent by the Lord.' 
Does the Lord hate the English, then? " " I do not know whether 
God loves or detests the English, nor do I know what will be- 
come of their souls, but I declare to you that before five years 
shall have passed, they will be driven out of France, excepting 
those who perish here." " Have you not said that the standards 
made by the men-at-arms in your image would bring them good 
fortune?" " I have said to my men, 'Enter boldly among the 
English, and I will enter there myself.' " " Are you truly sent by 
God?" "Yes, Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Mar- 
guerite have called me ' Joan the Maid, daughter of God.' " 
" Why did you leave your parents? " " Because of the pity which 
I felt for the realm of France." " Why did you carry your 
standard at the coronation at Rheims, rather than those of the 
other captains?" ''It had been sharer in the tribulation and it 
was right that it should be participator in the honor." When she 
was asked what the voices said to her, what form the visions had, 
she told what she had seen and heard, and she added, " I am 
come hither from God. I have nothing to do here, send me to 
God from whom I am come." For two months she was thus 
tortured with questions. The appeal which she made to the pope 
and to the Council was refused. The English murmured at the 
long delay. Pierre Cauchon ended by presenting to her a retrac- 
tion in four articles promising her that if she would sign it he 
would deliver her from the hands of her English jailers, and place 
her in the hands of the clergy. On the 24th of May she was con- 



I02 CHARLES VII AND JOAN OF ARC 

ducted to the Cemetery of Saint Ouen, where Joan, under threat of 
the stake, consented to trace at the bottom of the formula of abjura- 
tion the letters of her name, which had been written for her by 
holding her hand. Then she was condemned to perpetual detention 
to live upon the bread of sorrow and the water of anguish in order 
that she might bewail her sins. 

The English, exasperated at this sentence, stoned the judges 
and reproached them for not having earned the king's money. 
" My lord, have no concern about it," said Cauchon to Warwick, 
" we shall get her again." Thereupon they took away from her, 
to her great grief, her woman's clothing in order to compel her 
to resume man's attire, contrary to the order of the Church. 
Cauchon at once hastened to make a crime of this. He pro- 
claimed that she had returned to her error as a dog to his vomit, 
and that she deserved death. At the same time Joan declared that 
she had only retracted through fear of the fire, that the voices 
had again spoken to her, ** My Saints have told me that it was 
a great pity to have betrayed God by my abjuration, and that I 
would lose my soul in saving my life." She was condemned to be 
burned alive as a " heretic, relapsed, apostate, and idolatrous." 

12. Her Death (May 30th, 1431).— On May 30th, 143 1, 
Brother Martin Ladvenu went to Joan to prepare her for death. 
When she understood that she was to be put to death by fire, the 
poor girl was dissolved in tears. " Bishop," she said to Cauchon, 
*' I am being murdered by you, I appeal from you to God." 
Then she confessed and took communion, while the assistants 
recited the prayers for the dying. She was given the long shift 
of the criminal and was crowned with a mitre on which were 
displayed the words, " Heretic, relapsed, apostate, idolatrous." 
She mounted a cart, escorted by eight hundred English soldiers 
armed with lances and swords. All the English troops were on 
foot to restrain the populace. At the Place du Vieux-Marché 
three platforms were erected, one for Winchester and the French 
prelates, the other for the judges, the third for Joan. One of 
the judges. Master Nicholas Midi, pronounced a long sermon 
upon the text, " If one member suffer, all the members are afflicted, 
and the afflicted member ought to be cut off that the others may 
be preserved " ; and he ended with the words, '' Joan, depart in 
peace, the Church no longer is able to defend you." Joan clasped 



THE TREATY OF ARRAS 103 

her hands, fell upon her knees, called upon the Most High God, 
the Virgin, and the Saints. She asked for a cross. An Englishman 
made one with a stick; she took it, kissed it, and placed it in her 
bosom. Frère Ysambard went to look for one in a neighboring 
church, and held that before her eyes during the entire time 
of her punishment. The executioner set fire to the fagots, '' then 
nature suffered and the flesh was troubled." She cried out anew, 
" Oh, Rouen, you will be, then, my last resting-place." She said 
nothing more, and " did not sin further with her lips," even in 
the moment of trouble and anguish. She accused neither the king 
nor the saints, but being come to the summit of the fagots, seeing 
the great city, the immobile and silent crowd, she could not re- 
frain from saying, " Ah, Rouen, Rouen, I greatly fear that you 
will suffer for my death." She who had saved the people, and 
whom the people had abandoned, expressed in dying only com- 
passion for them (Michelet). 

When the flames enveloped her she was heard to cry, " My 
God . . . Jesus! Maria! . . . My voices! . . ." Finally let- 
ting her head fall she uttered a last cry, *' Jesus!" Ten thou- 
sand men wept ; an Englishman exclaimed, *' We are lost, we have 
burned a saint," while the judge, Jean Alespee, weeping, cried out, 
*' I wish that my soul were where I believe the soul of yonder 
woman is " ; but the Cardinal of Winchester had her ashes thrown 
into the Seine. 

Thus died Vv^hat Pasquier called in the XVI century '' a true 
miracle of God," the marvelous heroine who has been celebrated 
by the English Southey as well as by the German Schiller. She 
has become the most beautiful and the most noble incarnation of 
French patriotism. 

13. The Treaty of Arras (1435). — The death of Joan of Arc, 
however, was far from serving the English cause. Winchester had 
the young Henry VI crowned at Paris in vain. Everywhere the 
French regained the advantage. At the same time Philip of Bur- 
gundy broke with the English. He had got wind of the intrigues 
of Bedford and of Gloucester, who were planning to get rid of him, 
and were offering to his revolted citizens of Ghent the support 
of the English. The duke of Burgundy thereupon consented to 
treat with Charles VII, and what may be truly called a European 
Congress assembled at Arras, There arrived successively ambas- 



I04 CHARLES VII AND JOAN OF ARC 

sadors from the Council of Basel, from the pope, from the emperor, 
from the kings of Castile, Navarre, Aragon, Portugal, Naples, 
Sicily, Cyprus, Poland, and Denmark, and from the dukes of 
Milan, Brittany, and Alençon. The University of Paris, a great 
number of the cities of France, of Burgundy, and of the Low Coun- 
tries w^ere also represented. 

The conference opened on the 3d of August, 1435, in the 
church of Saint- Vaast. The English demanded the execution of 
the treaty of Troyes, and upon the refusal of the French, at once 
left the Congress. Every one then prayed Philip to give peace 
to France. The duke hesitated; he prided himself upon his un- 
shaken fidelity to his promises, but the theologians freed him 
from his oaths, and Philip finally consented to a reconciliation 
with Charles VII. On the 21st of September, 1435, he signed 
the treaty of Arras. Charles disavowed the crime of Montereau, 
surrendered in perpetuity to the duke of Burgundy the counties of 
Macon and Auxerre, the castles of Roye, of Peronne, and Mont- 
didier, Bar-sur-Seine, the county of Burgundy, and the abbey of 
Luxeuil. He also surrendered upon condition of being allowed to 
buy them back, these cities of the Somme: Saint-Quentin, Corbie, 
Amiens, Abbeville, Saint-Valery, and others, along with the county 
of Ponthieu, and the duke was declared free from rendering any 
homage to the crown. These conditions were very hard. ** Too 
much to the disadvantage and prejudice of the king," says Jean 
Chartier, " too much to the profit of the duke." The treaty of 
Arras, none the less, had fortunate and important consequences. As 
a contemporary says, *' It gave to Charles VII his realm." 

Bedford died on the 14th of September; Isabella of Bavaria died 
on the 29th. Both had felt that their cause was lost by the 
reconciliation of Charles VII with the dukes of Burgundy and of 
Bourbon. 

Upon the news of the treaty a great number of towns rose 
against the English. The Parisian burghers called upon the 
army of the Constable, who broke down the Saint-Jacques bar- 
rier. The English governor, Willoughby, shut himself up in the 
Bastile, then negotiated with the enemy, and obtained the right 
of withdrawing to Rouen. Paris again became the French capital. 
The English, without a regular government, again became the 
foreigner whom it was necessary, at any price, to drive out of 



THE PRAGUERIE 105 

France. They still had some success, thanks to the scattered con- 
dition of the French royal troops, who were obliged to carry on a 
campaign in the north and in the south at the same time; but 
they lost ground daily. They themselves gave up hope, and in 
1444 when Charles VII signed with them the truce of Tours 
he recovered possession of a great part of Normandy, all of the 
lle-de-France, Landes, and Agenais. 

14. The Praguerie. — The struggle against the English had 
not been so active as to prevent Charles VII from reorganizing 
the realm in the reconquered regions. Aided by loyal and able 
counselors, he negotiated with outside powers, the Council of 
Basel and Pope Eugenius IV. He obtained for the French Church 
the Pragmatic Sanction, and a series of measures were taken up for 
the protection of his subjects against the excesses of the undis- 
ciplined soldiery, for improving the administration of justice 
and the finances, for building up a regular army, and for improving 
the condition of commerce and the bourgeoisie. 

These reforms produced marked irritation in the ranks of the 
French nobility, and every enemy of order showed its head, small 
and great, skinners and princes. Toward the end of 1439 a plot 
was organized for the purpose of separating Charles VII from 
the influence of his counselors. Even the young Dauphin Louis, 
then sixteen and a half years old, who was eager to rule, con- 
sented to give his support to the rebels. The revolt broke out in 
1440 at several points at once throughout Saintonge and Poitou; 
but public opinion was against the rebels. The Third Estate and 
part of the nobility were openly hostile to them, and the towns 
closed their gates against them. Moreover, the king and the Con- 
stable displayed the greatest energy. Dunois and the duke of 
Alencon were the first to make their submission. Then the duke 
of Bourbon and the Dauphin came to ask pardon. As the Dauphin 
entreated that his father would pardon his accomplices and threat- 
ened to leave the court again if his request was disregarded, the 
king said, " Louis, the gates are open and if they are not wide 
enough for you I will have fifteen or twenty fathoms of the wall 
taken away to give you exit." The Dauphin remained. Charles 
was indulgent to the rebels, restored to them their property and 
gave to Louis the government of Dauphiny. Such was the history 
of the revolt which contemporaries called the Praguerie, in allu- 



io6 CHARLES VII AND JOAN OF ARC 

sion to the civil wars which at that time were desolating Bo- 
hemia, and of which Prague was the center. 

15. The Skinners. — The Praguerie had still further aggra- 
vated the evils from which France was suffering as a result of 
the exactions and ravages of the soldiers, the band of routiers 
and " skinners." After the truce of Tours, Charles VII followed 
the example of Charles V by finding employment for them upon 
distant expeditions. The emperor, Frederick III, sought his sup- 
port against the Swiss. Charles VII sent against them the Dauphin 
with an army of " skinners," They were victors near Basel in 
1444, but ten thousand men lost their lives in the battle and the 
Dauphin conceived such an admiration for the Swiss that he signed 
a treaty of alliance with them. 

At the same time the duke of Lorraine, Rene of Anjou, praj^ed 
Charles to assist him in his struggle against the people of Mes- 
sina. In 1445 Charles VII and Richmond entered Lorraine, com- 
pelled Epinal to declare itself subject to the king of France, at- 
tacked Metz, which offered such vigorous resistance that Charles 
was compelled to accord to it an honorable peace. Toul 
and Verdun had to accept the royal protection, and Charles 
VII thus resumed the Capetian policy of expansion toward the 
east. 

16. The End of the Hundred Years' War .—While the truce 
of Tours enabled Charles VII to reorganize France, England was 
experiencing serious difficulties. For this reason, when the truce 
expired in 1449, the king of France eagerly seized upon the first 
plausible pretext for renewing the war. An English troop had 
sacked a town which belonged to the duke of Brittany. He ap- 
pealed to the king of France, and the troops of Charles VII in- 
vaded Normandy. Three armies, commanded respectively by 
Dunois, Richmond, and the duke of Alençon, well equipped, 
thanks to the two hundred thousand crowns of gold which 
Jacques Cœur had furnished, drove all before them. The towns- 
people of Rouen opened the gates of their city, where the rehabilita- 
tion of Joan of Arc had at once begun. Upon this news Mar- 
garet of Anjou and Suffolk, who governed in the name of Henry 
VI, realized the necessity of making a last effort. An army of 
five thousand men commanded by Thomas Kyriel landed at Cher- 
bourg, and proceeded along the road to Caen. The count of 



THE CONQUEST OF GUIENNE 107 

Clermont and the Constable attacked it near the village of 
Formigny, April 14th, 1450, and completely defeated it. The 
date 1450 is memorable as marking the end of the English domina- 
tion in Normandy. The entire province had been conquered in 
the space of a single year, as the result of a campaign which the 
king rightly described as miraculous. 

17. The Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc. — The work which 
the martyrdom of Joan of Arc had begun was now almost com- 
pleted ; but the king of France could not leave the memory of 
the heroic Maid under the stigma which had been fastened upon it. 
In 1450, Charles VII set about to secure a revision of the in- 
iquitous trial at Rouen. He declared, on February 15th, that 
the enemies of Joan had cruelly and unreasonably put her to 
death, and he wished to get at the truth of the matter. Pope 
Nicholas V threw many difficulties in the way. Cardinal Estoute- 
ville, who had taken the matter in hand, argued in vain before the 
Holy See, and produced a demand for a rehearing signed by 
Joan's mother and two of her brothers; but the successor of 
Nicholas, Calixtus III, consented to render justice at the request 
of Charles VII. The hearing was formally opened November 
7th, 1455, in the church of Notre-Dame, at Paris. The judges 
conducted a minute and prolonged inquiry and held several sessions 
at Rouen. From all parts of the realm they summoned those 
who had known Joan, the gentry and peasants, priests and soldiers, 
and persons of every age and sex. The city which had witnessed 
the suffering of Joan was destined to see her rehabilitation. 
After long discussions, the decision was pronounced in the great 
hall of the archbishop of Rouen, July 7th, 1456. It declared that 
the accusations brought against Joan were false, that the procedure 
followed was fraudulent, and that the decision was thereby 
formally annulled. 

18. The Conquest of Guienne. — A month after the con- 
quest of Normandy, Dunois marched upon Guienne with an 
army of twenty thousand men and subdued it without a blow. 
The Gascons, however, were not slow in regretting the English 
rule. The agents of Charles VII, in spite of the king's promises, 
had piled on the taxes, commerce languished, and the port of 
Bordeaux was deserted. Thus scarcely had the old English com- 
mander Talbot appeared before Bordeaux, at the head of an army 



io8 CHARLES VII AND JOAN OF ARC 

of eight thousand men, than he was hailed as a liberator, and 
Guienne had to be conquered again. 

Charles VII at once displayed the greatest activity. An army 
of eighteen hundred lances, commanded by the duke of Pen- 
thièvre and the brothers Bureau, advanced to the banks of the 
Dordogne. Talbot ventured to attack the strong position which 
the French occupied upon the river at Castillon (July 17th, 1453). 
He was killed and the English completely crushed. The vic- 
torious army laid siege to Bordeaux while a fleet composed of 
Rochelle and Breton ships closed the port. The city was obliged 
to surrender after two months' resistance, Charles VII made a 
triumphant entry into it (October 19th, 1453), and the Hundred 
Years' War was over. 

19. Last Years of Charles VII. — If every one rallied around 
King Charles, if his contemporaries called him " the Victorious," 
if he reorganized the internal affairs of France, after having de- 
livered it from the English, this did not relieve him from appre- 
hensions as to the future. His son, the Dauphin Louis, refused 
to yield to paternal authority. Since 1446 he had not made an 
appearance at court in spite of the repeated requests of Charles 
VII. Withdrawn into his Dauphiny, he labored there upon thor- 
oughgoing reforms, created the University of Valencia, raised 
troops like a king, and, in spite of his father's opposition, married 
Princess Charlotte of Savoy. Throughout he labored for the de- 
velopment of trade and commerce. During this time he intrigued 
with every one, negotiated with the dukes of Alençon and Bur- 
gundy, and tried to identify the princes of the blood and the 
bishops with his cause. Charles VII then resolved to take vigor- 
ous action against his son. Toward the end of August, 1456, a 
royal army marched against the Dauphin. Louis precipitately 
fled to Grenoble, crossed the states of the duke of Savoy and 
joined his good uncle of Burgundy, who gave him a magnificent 
reception, and assigned the castle of Genappe for his residence 
with a pension of twenty-five hundred livres a month. The king 
of France thought for a moment of assembling an army to march 
against Philip of Burgundy, but contented himself with saying, 
" My cousin does not know what he is about. He is harboring the 
fox that will eat up his hens." 

The health of Charles now failed rapidly. Weakened by the 



LAST YEARS OF CHARLES' VII 109 

disturbances of his life he became gloomy and suspicious, be- 
lieving that he was surrounded by plots, betrayed by his favorites, 
and threatened M^ith poison. He died of an abscess of the throat 
July 22d, 146 1. The French territory he left free, the royal 
authority strengthened, the nation prosperous, and France re- 
spected. He had found France expiring ; he left her vigorous and 
powerful. 



CHAPTER VIII 
FRANCE IN THE XV CENTURY 

1. Character of the Reign of Charles VII. — As Barante 
remarked with great justice: "The XV century was the last 
convulsive agony of feudalism, the birth of a monarchical con- 
stitution, which did not take on its proper character and setting 
until the reign of Francis I." The reign of Charles VII made 
important contributions to this transformation of France. Upon 
his accession there were only two powers still left in the realm: 
the nobility and the Church. The nobles had again become com- 
pletely independent of monarchical authority; they had dismem- 
bered the realm and resumed their ancient rights of private war- 
fare and local jurisdiction; and if they sometimes did consent to 
furnish soldiers to the royal cause, it was upon condition that 
they themselves should command and should live at the expense 
of the realm which they pretended to serve. The Church, in 
spite of the efforts of Saint Louis and Philip the Fair to establish 
a national clergy, had drifted back into the hands of the Papacy, 
which disposed of ecclesiastical dignities according to its good 
pleasure. The Parlement, which formed a kind of aristocracy for 
the Third Estate, had, little by little, grown unaccustomed to that 
respect for the crown which for a long time had been its tradi- 
tion and its honor. The king was indifferently obeyed, even in the 
towns of his own domain. " Thus," according to Dansin, " dis- 
orders in justice, finance, and administration, the absence of an 
energetic authority at the head of society, a spirit of independence, 
and even of insubordination, spread through all classes. A turbu- 
lent nobility and a middle class crushed under public exactions, 
which left it neither the sentiment nor the energy of patriotism, 
seemed to conspire to push France backward for three centuries 
into the full anarchy of the feudal régime." 

It was then that Charles VII set to work. His reign for a 

no 



THE GRAND COUNCIL in 

long time has been unappreciated because it has not been under- 
stood. However one may regard the feebleness of his early years, 
the intrigues of the court, " as shameful and bloody as a revolution 
in the seraglio," to which he lent himself, whatever reservations 
one may have upon the subject of his abandonment of Joan of 
Arc, it is impossible not to recognize in him a strict sense of 
justice, a judicial spirit, a profound feeling for the dignity of his 
crown and the interests of his people, and a rare ability to recog- 
nize the talent and fitness of his servants, while at the same time his 
vigilant intervention in the affairs of state, the grave dignity of 
his character, and his charming affability, may not be questioned. 

2. The Grand Council. — It was principally the Grand Council 
which aided the king in his w^ork of reform. It made the laws, 
administered and judged them, and exercised, so to speak, even 
royal authority. The Grand Council discussed and decided all 
questions of finance, and devoted itself to the regulation of all 
affairs. It intervened in the Schism, in the maintenance of Gal- 
lican liberties, and in the relations between the French Church and 
the Holy See. It frequently constituted itself a military commis- 
sion, and controlled the operations of the army. In a word, the 
king considered no measure, howsoever trivial, without the advice 
of the Council, which was completely identified with the sovereign. 

The question arises, what was the composition of the Grand 
Council? Its composition varied. There are to be seen among 
its members princes of the blood, great officers of the crown, sev- 
eral church dignitaries, and representatives of the great and small 
nobility, as well as members of the Third Estate. Under Charles 
VI, the Third Estate had composed not more than a fourth part 
of the Council; under Charles VII it formed a half. It was 
then, and not at all without reason, that the duke of Burgundy 
reproached the king of France with having called the members of 
his Council from ** people of small estate and of unknown lineage." 

The extent and the importance of the functions of the Council 
compelled Charles VII to subdivide it into a certain number of 
special divisions in which each affair had to be considered by men 
most competent to handle it. There were to be found in it de- 
partments for justice, war, and finance; and the administrative 
importance of the Council became so pronounced that it crowded 
into second place even the ancient officers of the crown. Under the 



112 FRANCE IN THE XV CENTURY 

reign of Charles VII the great officers increased. There were at 
that time seventeen of them, yet, side by side with the Council and 
the great officers of state, the services of the chancellory continued. 
The Chancellor, whose bureaus are the only ones of the XV cen- 
tury monarchy, sealed all acts emanating from the Council; these 
drawn up by the Chancellor's agents, were issued upon his sole re- 
sponsibility. 

3. The Estates General. — The King's Council was not the 
only deliberative body during the reign of Charles VII. The 
Estates General also played an important rôle. From 1421 to 1439 
Charles VII summoned the Estates General of the Langue d'Oc 
four times, the Estates General of the Langue d'Oïl six times, the 
united Estates of Langue d'Oc and of Langue d'Oïl twice. In the 
midst of its frightful distress, the royal power felt the necessity 
of keeping constantly in touch with the representatives of the 
country, of exchanging with them its hopes or its regrets, and of 
accepting their advice as the price of the incessant sacrifices which 
the king demanded of them. The Estates General for their part 
displayed an admirable patriotism, giving to royalty all the sub- 
sidies which it needed to carry on the war with the English. They 
made frequent use of their right •of presenting grievances by de- 
manding reforms, and by protesting against the pillaging carried on 
by the soldiery. The Estates General of Orléans in 1439 were the 
most important. It was they who recognized the king's authority 
alone, and they refused to the noble the right of levying the taille 
for the support of the army. For a long time it has been the belief 
that Charles VII was inclined to transform the Estates into a 
regular institution, but this is not the case. When he felt his 
power well assured, he dispensed with them, and although a state- 
ment to the contrary has often been made, they did not vote a 
permanent taille in 1439, and Charles continued to levy the taille, 
at first with the consent of the Provincial Estates, afterwards 
without this consent. The crown continued to see in the Estates 
nothing more than an exceptional resource in serious crises, and 
from 1439 to 1 46 1 the Estates General were not called together 
at all. 

4. The Provincial Estates. — The regular meeting of the 
Provincial Estates, even in the pays d'élection, which were de- 
prived of them at the end of the XVI century, was a sort of com- 



THE ARMY BEFORE THE REFORMS 113 

pensation for the suppression of the Estates General. These 
assemblies were composed of deputies from the three orders: the 
Clergy, the Nobility, and the Third Estate. Called together by 
the king and by the governor, they assembled in one of the most 
important cities of the province. Their essential attribute v^^as the 
right to vote the tax. Moreover, *' inasmuch as they had a legal 
existence and formed so to speak a moral entity," they had the 
right of performing the greater part of the acts which a great 
feudal baron still had at this time, particularly the right of ad- 
ministering justice. So too it was that the Provincial Estates 
raised and organized troops for the territorial defense, and par- 
titioned out the tax among those who were to pay it. They 
rendered great service to Charles VH in his struggle against the 
national enemy, and in his reorganization of France. The estates 
of Auvergne, at the time of the Praguerie, gave to the king a 
touching proof of their devotion by declaring " that they were his, 
body and soul, and that they would obey his every wish." 

It should not be a matter of surprise that Charles VH during 
this time permitted a certain amount of local political liberty. 
Yet the provincial Estates were completely under the hand of the 
king; they were not called together nor presided over except by his 
officers, and they might be dismissed upon the least show of re- 
sistance. As a matter of fact, as soon as the king felt himself 
strong enough to dispense with them, he did so; and after 1451 he 
ceased to submit to them his requests for subsidies. It must be 
recognized that their organization was by no means perfect, and 
that their composition was too aristocratic, but this institution, 
nevertheless, was a salutary check upon the demands of the crown, 
and the only possible safeguard for the provincial interests. 

5. The Army Before the Reforms of Charles VII.— What 
constituted real political sovereignty was the right of demanding 
military service, of administering justice, and of raising the taxes. 
This was the triple privilege of a feudal baron in the Middle 
Ages, and the crown was striving to assert itself in the enforcement 
of these particular rights throughout the whole of France, even 
outside the royal domain. 

In the XV century the king of France had in his service the 
feudal army and a body of mercenaries. But in spite of the 
ordinances of Charles V, there was nothing but insubordination 



114 FRANCE IN THE XV CENTURY 

and confusion. The army was nothing more than a great mixture 
of all nations. The Scotch mercenaries, the Lombards, or the 
Spaniards, who served under the banners of Charles VII, had 
only been attracted by the hope of large pay, and they had no 
interest whatever in the national wars. In this army were to be 
found the men of the lords who held from the king of France, 
the Bretons of Richmond, the Gascons of La Hire and of 
Xaintrailles, and the French from central France, under Dunois, 
" a confused and violent mêlée, a kind of military Babel who spoke 
all tongues, and who had nothing in common but the love of 
booty and blood" (Dansin). For forty years (1405- 1448), the 
Journal of a Burgher of Paris is a continuous record of the horrors 
of a monstrous war, the harrying of the peasants, tradespeople, and 
clergy. These bandits cared for nothing but to fall upon the peas- 
ants and to oblige them under torture to pay a ransom. It was 
simply a piece of sport for the soldier to destroy the harvests, to strip 
the trees of their fruits, to burn up the sheaves of grain, to drive off 
the beasts of burden of the tiller of soil, and to set fire to his 
house. When the enemy had spared the country, the plundering 
soldiers pillaged it; and in order to be rid of them, the peasants 
were obliged to give large sums of money; this is what was 
called an appeasement, or a bargain. The king's captains admitted 
that they despoiled his subjects, " that they might be the more hon- 
orably maintained in his service." 

The leaders of these bands throughout France had so thoroughly 
terrified the peasants that the towns were compelled to ask their 
permission to fortify themselves, or to close their gates. Basin 
tells of a sentry in all the towns placed at the top of a tower for 
the purpose of signaling the approach of the pillagers, the skinners 
(the Scorcheurs), and the fleecers, or late comers. "A bell, or 
the sound of a horn, announced to those who were working in the 
field, or in the vineyards, when they had best seek refuge within the 
fortifications. These alarms were so universal and so frequent that 
the oxen and draught horses of the peasant recognized the signal of 
the watchers, and, when they were once unharnessed, betook them- 
selves at a gallop to the place of refuge, without the need of a 
driver." 

6. Reforms in the Army. — Scarcely had the king become 
the actual master of his realm than he set about to suppress the 



THE DRAGOON COMPANIES 115 

brigandage of the soldiery. Beginning with 1438, letters ad- 
dressed to the provost of Paris ordered the arrest of the soldiery 
who were robbing the king's subjects. In 1439, after a formal 
deliberation of the Estates General, the Council adopted the cele- 
brated ordinance of November 2d : " To abolish the pillaging and 
vexation caused by the soldiers," one of the most sensible and 
energetic ordinances which the crown had published up to that 
time. It declared that the army belonged to the king exclusively, 
and that he alone had the right of giving rank, or of making 
advances in rank. The royal captains could enlist only men-at- 
arms, and they were corhpelled to respect persons and property, 
" the clergy, the nobles, the tradespeople, and the peasants." The 
captain was held responsible for all offenses committed by the men 
under his command : if he did not deliver up the offenders he was 
to suffer " the same penalty as the delinquent would have suffered." 
Any subject was permitted to fall upon pillagers by force of arms. 
The king even awarded them the spoils of those whom they 
killed, and forbade any one to interfere with them. In addition 
to this, in order to cut short all these brigandages, it was an- 
nounced that the soldiery should not be scattered over the coun- 
try, but should be quartered in the frontier villages facing the 
enemy. Military offenses were to be judged by the ordinary 
tribunals, and the king adopted a singular plan that the punish- 
ment might be exemplary: he formally forbade the exercise of the 
right of pardon, and authorized Parlement and his officers of 
justice to disobey him if he pardoned any one who was guilty. 
The crown thus became what it had not been for a long time, 
the protector of the weak, the best assurance of public peace, and 
the avowed supporter of the peaceable and industrious classes. 

7. The Dragoon Companies (Compagnies d'ordonnance, 
1445). — It has for a long time been maintained that Charles 
VII created a permanent army, and that the Estates General of 
1439 voted a perpetual taille of one million two hundred thousand 
livres for the wages and maintenance of this army. Nothing of 
this kind is found in the ordinance of November 2d ; but measures 
directed exclusively against the excesses of the soldiery find a 
place there and the recognition of the king's right to levy taxes 
for the support of the army. The taille, voted at first by the 
provincial Estates, then, after 1450, levied according to the king's 



ii6 FRANCE IN THE XV CENTURY 

good pleasure, was used for the payment of the troops which were 
kept under arms during the whole reign because of the war with 
the English, and were continued from that time on. " Thus, 
Charles VII did not create the permanent army, but an army 
which became permanent." 

This army was composed of both infantry and cavalry. The 
cavalry was made up of the dragoon regiments of the king 
{Compagnies de V ordonnance le Roi). It was created by means 
of an ordinance, the text of which has not been preserved, but 
which probably appeared some time in February or in March of 
1445. According to the chroniclers who speak of it, this ordi- 
nance organized fifteen companies of one hundred lances each. 
The lance consisted of a company of six men : one man-at-arms and 
his squire, both of them gentlemen, three archers, and one swords- 
man. These fifteen companies formed an effective force of about 
nine thousand men. Their captains were for the most part men 
of consideration, and care was taken to garrison these troops in 
the towns. They were not housed in barracks, but were fur- 
nished with lodging by the inhabitants, together with certain neces- 
sary articles at a reasonable price. Their demands were at first 
of a modest nature in order to trouble as little as possible the 
population, which was already exhausted. Later, a sum of money 
was paid for the sustenance of the troops, and their wages were 
paid by the élus, or by special commissioners. 

This institution of a royal cavalry was admirable from every 
point of view. It secured to the king's service all the nobles who 
could unite a feeling of discipline with a training in arms; it 
attached to the defense of order lawless and brutal forces which 
had too often compromised it; and it disarmed and compelled to 
return to their homes thousands of barons who would not lend the 
king their co-operation, except on the condition of sharing or dis- 
regarding his authority. From this point France recovers that 
military superiority which she had lost during the first part of 
the Hundred Years' War. 

8. The Tax-free Archers (Francs- Archers). — An infantry 
had to be joined to this cavalry, and by the ordinance issued in 
1448 Charles VII instituted the tax-free archers {francs-archers) . 
Each parish of the realm was obliged to furnish a man who, as 
far as it was possible, had already been to war. He was chosen 



ARTILLERY 117 

by the provosts, and took oath to the king. The archer wore a 
salada, or light helmet, a briçandine, or corselet covered with 
strips of iron, a dagger, a sword, a crossbow, and a quiver filled 
with seventeen quarrels. He was free from all taxes, whence 
his name, was required on Sundaj^s to practise shooting with 
the crossbow, and in time of war he received four francs a month. 
The archers were divided into groups of fifty, under the orders 
of a captain, who reviewed them several times a year. Under 
Charles VII they numbered some eight thousand men; under 
Louis XI about sixteen thousand. 

It was not, properly speaking, a standing army, but a kind 
of militia, like that of Switzerland, because during the time they 
were not in service the archers remained in their villages, where 
they gave themselves over to agricultural pursuits; but the prin- 
ciple of this levy adopted by Charles VII was a political revolu- 
tion (Boutaric). It established a direct connection between the 
people and the crown, and it accustomed free men to obey an 
authority other than that of the lord. Unfortunately the archers, 
living isolated in their parishes, did not drill together and did 
not form a real army, and never became accustomed to military 
discipline, nor imbued with military spirit. Held in contempt by 
the lords, they were ridiculed in popular songs which made sport 
of their cowardice in warfare, and of their insolence toward the 
common people. The monologue of the franc-archer of Bagnolet, 
attributed to Villon, pictures this '' rustic soldier " trembling 
before a scarecrow set up in a field. Louis XI was unable to 
make much use of the archers and, while he did not suppress them, 
he did not count upon them and preferred instead to employ 
foreign mercenaries. 

9. Artillery. — Charles VII was not content with organizing 
the cavalry and the infantry only, he gave to artillery an im- 
portance which it had lacked hitherto. For a long time portable 
cannon of very small size had been in use. Several of them were 
placed upon a platform, mounted on wheels ; this apparatus was 
called a ribaudequin. At the end of the XIV century, cannon 
of various sizes were being made; pieces mounted upon the 
ramparts hurled huge stone projectiles, while the long culverins 
handled by two men served as portable artillery. As to field guns, 
for a long time their only use had been to terrify the enemy by the 



ii8 FRANCE IN THE XV CENTURY 

violence of their explosions. They were difficult to handle, were 
formed of sections badly joined together, had only a limited range, 
and were often more dangerous to those who fired them than to 
the enemy. 

There were two great masters of artillery, Pierre Bessoneau and 
Gaspard Bureau, who, under Charles VII, organized a field and 
siege artillery mounted upon carriages with the pieces cast in bronze 
and hurling iron cannon balls. Thanks to them, French artillery 
became the most formidable in Europe, and it decided the issue at 
Formigny and at Castillon. 

10. Judiciary Institutions. — During the first years of the 
reign of Charles VII the administration of justice had been de- 
livered over to the same disorders as all the rest of the public 
service. The laws had ceased to be obeyed and Parlement had 
become a political faction. That it might increase its own in- 
fluence and prerogatives, it had made use of the universal con- 
fusion which was destroying all civil power. It had supported 
the claims and actions of Henry VI, and had fought against Charles 
VIL Therefore, the king, when he had again become master of 
France, wished to reform the abuses which had crept into the 
administration of justice. He drove out of the Parlement of 
Paris the English faction, and replaced it with the magistrates of 
the court which he had created at Poitiers, sought likewise to 
deprive the Parlement thus reorganized of its pretensions to 
political independence for the future, and planned to compel it 
to resume its judicial duties. The ordinance of 1446 regulated 
internal discipline, the duties of the magistrates, the choice of 
their members, and the secrecy of their deliberations. It made 
an effort to impose upon the magistracy a more regular procedure, 
and to revive the moral dignity of a body which the civil wars 
had singularly debased. It surrendered to the king the nomina- 
tion of the counselors to Parlement, demanded that the magis- 
trates should have their hearings conducted as speedily as possible, 
and that their trials should not be permitted to drag along 
unnecessarily. 

The ordinance of 1454, the '' great ordinance of April," as it 
was then called, is occupied with the hierarchy of the judiciary 
with their exact responsibilities, and with rules to be followed for 
the best expedition of affairs. The magistrates had to come to 



FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS 119 

the palace at six o'clock in the morning and conduct their in- 
terrogations rapidly. The ordinance regulates the duties of at- 
torneys and solicitors, the responsibility of the bailiffs and the 
seneschals, and that of all the officers of justice, together with 
the limits of their power. The ordinance concludes with an 
article which is worthy of attention: for the guidance of judges, 
the styles or rules of procedure, and the customary law shall be 
reduced to writing throughout the whole realm. This vital meas- 
ure was not fully realized until the time of the grandson of 
Charles VII. 

At the same time the power of the Parlement of Paris was 
extended by the right which Charles VII accorded it of taking 
cognizance of the affairs of the Universities, and of its right of 
intervention in the affairs of the Church. It could make rules 
for ecclesiastical discipline and administration, and could safe- 
guard the maintenance of the liberties of the Gallican Church. 
Furthermore, in order to bring together more closely the people 
with the tribunal which was to judge them, Charles VII divided the 
Parlement of Paris, and instituted that of Toulouse in 1447, and 
that of Grenoble in 1453. 

To sum up, the judiciary reforms of Charles VII asserted that 
all justice emanates from the king, centralized the judicial power 
in Parlement, limited the action of feudal and ecclesiastical tribu- 
nals, and disciplined the French magistracy. They served the 
interest of the nation by bringing together justice and those amen- 
able to it, by raising the authority of the lower courts and by 
causing better rules of procedure to prevail. 

11. Financial Institutions. — Military reform clearly called 
for financial reform, and in order to secure a permanent army, 
the crown had to have permanent taxes. Even as late as 1440, 
the financial system of Charles VII was composed, very largely, of 
violent and ruinous expedients, leaving the treasury always poor 
because of the absence of any business system and correct account- 
ing. Charles VII undertook a series of regulations for the pur- 
pose of reforming at the same time the taxes and the body re- 
sponsible for superintending their collection and their disbursement. 
The revenues of the monarchy were divided into " ordinary reve- 
nues," which w^ere the revenues from the domain, and " extraordi- 
nary revenues," by which is meant the tailles and the aides. The 



I20 FRANCE IN TPIE XV CENTURY 

revenues of the domain were made up of the Income from the 
land and lordships which belonged to the crown and from the 
royal, or feudal, rights which were attached to them: the right 
of regalia (the revenue from vacant bishoprics) ; redemption; 
coinage; ennoblement; legitimation; franc-fief (a fief held by a 
commoner) ; ransom; etc. The taille was levied upon all com- 
moners in proportion to their property. It constituted what we 
today call a land and personal tax. The aides, or indirect taxes, 
were those which fell upon objects of ordinary consumption, like 
wines, upon fairs, and markets, and the transportation of mer- 
chandise. The gabelle upon salt, and the customs duties were 
added to the aides. Charles VII took pains to reorganize each of 
these sources of royal revenue. 

12. The Domain. — No sooner had the king established him- 
self in Paris than he undertook the restoration of the domain. 
In 1438, he again required the feudal payments which the lords 
owed to the king and which they had ceased to render. The 
ordinance of 1445 enjoined upon the treasurers of France the 
responsibility for verifying all titles to land alienated from the 
royal domain, and of again taking into the hands of the king 
those which had been usurped. The greater part of the aliena- 
tions which had been made under the reigns of his predecessors 
were revoked. The ordinance of September 25th, 1443, clearly 
separated the domain from other sources of revenue. Three 
treasurers responsible for the administration of the domain had to 
watch carefully over the collectors, whom they had under their 
orders, and to insist rigorously upon all the feudal revenues which 
were due to the sovereign, and to make strict inventories of every- 
thing which might possibly belong to tTie king. The collection of 
the revenues of the domain in the provinces was in the hands of 
the tax-gatherers of the domain, and jurisdiction over these 
revenues was in the hands of the bailiffs and provosts, masters of 
waters and forests, and masters of monies. 

13. The Aides. — We have seen how the aides were established 
after several attempts, then suppressed in the courts of the XV 
century. Charles VII hesitated for a long time about re- 
establishing them. Finally, in 1436, he determined upon it '* with 
the assent of the Three Estates of his obedience." All the levies of 
Charles V were resumed and made more exacting, The king 



JACQUES CŒUR 121 

rendered the indirect contributions fixed and permanent as he 
had rendered the direct tax. At the end of 1435 there were only 
the Langue d'Oc, Dauphiny, and the provinces outside the domain, 
which continued to vote the aides in their assemblies of the Three 
Orders. These provinces formed what were called the pays 
d'Etats, while the others who did not possess this privilege were 
known as the pays d'Elections. 

14. The Taille. — The ordinances of Charles VII profoundly 
modified the organization of the taille. The taille, a temporary 
affair up to that time, became from now on permanent. Comines 
understood the importance of this revolution which marked a new 
era in the financial and political order, when he said, " Charles 
VII was the first to win his point of imposing the taille accord- 
ing to his pleasure without the Estates of the realm. This tax 
had to be paid by all merchants, mechanics, laborers, all practi- 
tioners, officers, notaries, scriveners, and others." Those who 
were exempted were the nobles, the students of the Universities of 
Paris, Orléans, Angers, and Poitiers, the king's officers, all poor 
and miserable persons, and the members of the clergy and of 
the courts. But almost immediately a number of towns, corpora- 
tions, and private persons obtained immunities. 

15. Jacques Cœur. — Among the men who contributed to the 
restoration of France in the XV century, Jacques Cœur is entitled 
to a place of pre-eminence. The son of a rich furrier of Bourges, 
he was born in the last years of the XIV century. In 1427, when 
Charles VII was about to establish himself at Bourges, Jacques 
Cœur was already one of its chief citizens, and at that time was 
associated with an exile from Rouen, Ravant le Danois, for coining 
money. But the business was a failure, and he was accused of 
malversations, and condemned to pay a fine of a thousand crowns. 
He was named sometime afterwards Master of the Mint of Paris, 
and in 1437 obtained the title of King's Treasurer. He then threw 
himself into vast enterprises which made him the king of French 
commerce. 

The commerce which attracted the attention of every one at 
that time, which was the foundation of the greatness of the Italian 
republics and which had enriched Marseilles and Barcelona, was 
the commerce with the East. For a long time it was solely 
through the Italians and the Catalans that France obtained the 



122 FRANCE IN THE XV CENTURY 

merchandise of the Orient, its silks, cottons, spices, furs, and 
precious stones. But at the beginning of the XV century, the 
rivalry of Genoa and of Venice, and the progress of the Turks 
in the Orient, had undermined the maritime power of the two 
great Italian republics. Jacques Cœur understood this situation 
and resolved to draw from it profit for himself and for his coun- 
try. He made a journey to the markets of Damascus, Beirut, and 
Alexandria. Upon his return he founded at Montpellier a counting- 
house which became the center of his commercial operations. Fif- 
teen years afterwards he possessed thirty lordships, had purchased 
the copper and lead mines of the Beaujolais, and had acquired, or 
built, houses in Paris, Lyons, Tours, Beziers, Beaucaire, Mont- 
pellier, and Marseilles. His establishment at Bourges, upon which 
he had spent one hundred and thirty-five thousand crowns of 
gold in seven years, was evidence of the almost royal existence which 
he led, and he displayed everywhere his proud device, à vaillans 
cueurs riens impossible (to valiant hearts nothing is impossible). 

Three hundred agents throughout the principal towns of 
France, and in all the ports of the Mediterranean, directed the 
counting-houses of this " French Medici." He had a fleet of 
seven vessels which plied the Mediterranean without ceasing, from 
Marseilles and Aigues-Mortes to Alexandria, Beirut, Rhodes, and 
Famagusta. They took from France woolens, linens, ingots of 
copper, and of silver, and returned loaded with the cloth of gold 
of Damascus, velvets from Alexandria, taffetas from Cairo, car- 
pets from Asia Minor, spices from India, and porcelains from 
China. Having become a real power, Jacques Cœur enjoyed a 
considerable influence with the Sultan of Egypt, Abu Said, in- 
tervened in favor of the Venetians or of the Knights of Rhodes, 
and signed with him commercial treaties. He carried on a great 
commerce with Italy, established silk manufactures at Florence, 
disputed with the Catalan shipowners the trade with Barcelona, 
renewed relations with England, and made the French flag every- 
where respected. In 1449 his fortune had reached its highest 
point. George Chastelain says, in speaking of him: ** He made 
the glory of his master resound throughout the whole earth, and 
the flowers of his crown shine on distant seas." His contempo- 
raries valued his property in France alone at one million, three 
hundred thousand livres tournais (about two million one hundred 



JACQUES CŒUR 123 

and fîfty-six thousand dollars). Coiner to the king, banker to the 
court and the royal family, ambassador to Genoa, Rome, and Savoy, 
he enjoyed a tremendous credit. He made a magnificent use of 
his fortune by several endowments bestowed upon Bourges, Paris, 
and Montpellier, and furnished the king considerable sums in 
order to assist him in the conquest of Normandy. 

But the powerful favorite had numerous enemies. The greatest 
nobles of the court were his debtors, and dreamed of canceling 
their debts by overthrowing their creditor, while the courtiers 
envied his regal luxury and his influence. The tradespeople com- 
plained that, thanks to the royal favor, he monopolized all their 
business and their profits. 

In the month of July, 1451, at a time when Jacques Cœur be- 
lieved that he was sure of the royal favor, he found it suddenly 
charged against him that he had conspired against the king, 
poisoned Agnes Sorel, debased the currency, furnished arms to 
the Saracens, exported precious metals to the Orient, returned a 
Christian slave to the Mussulmans, practised extortion in the 
Langue d'Oc, counterfeited the Chancellor's seal, etc. The charges 
were drawn up by commissioners chosen from the most respected 
of the king's counselors, and after a trial which lasted two years 
Jacques Cœur was convicted of the crime of lèse-majesté by the 
king sitting in Council. His property was confiscated, he had 
to pay four hundred thousand crowns of gold, to make a public 
apology, and was banished from the realm forever. Charles VH 
had him imprisoned at Beaucaire, but his nephew, Jean de Village, 
and his agents at Marseilles, delivered him from prison. He 
found an asylum at Rome with Pope Nicholas V, and was there 
able to gather together the fragments of his fortune. Having been 
sent in 1456 by Calixtus HI to direct an expedition against the 
Turks, he died at Chio. Several years afterwards Louis XI 
commanded a review of the proceedings at his trial, and the 
restitution of a part of his property to his children. Charles VII 
has been very harshly criticized for having sacrificed this Colbert 
of the XV century, who had contributed to the reorganization of 
the finances, and had given such prosperity to French commerce. 
But when it is noted that Louis XI granted his favor to the 
children of Jacques Cœur, without, nevertheless, daring to re- 
habilitate the man himself, there is a disposition to believe that 



124 FRANCE IN THE XV CENTURY 

he had had suspicious relations with Louis the Dauphin, and that 
he had done him services which constituted treason in the eyes 
of Charles VIL 

16. The Crown and the Church. — The Church of France 
also underwent important reforms. Like all Christendom, it too 
had suiïered from the abuses caused by the despotism and the 
avarice of the papal court. The Papacy had succeeded by means 
of the system of '' apostolic reservations " in controlling the direct 
nomination to office of a great many of the episcopal sees and 
ecclesiastical benefices. By means of " expectative graces ^' (pro- 
visors) it disposed in advance, during the life of the holder of the 
office, of sees and benefices, and these graces were never granted 
for nothing. Foreigners, Italians, Germans, and English were 
brought into the French Church. The Papacy demanded, under 
the name of annates, the revenues for one or more years of 
episcopal sees which had become vacant, and collected, moreover, 
the revenues of the benefices of which it had control during the 
time that the office was vacant. It demanded of the clergy tenths 
and donations; finally, it multiplied appeals to the papal court in 
judicial matters, and this rendering of justice likewise was not 
free. The apostolic taxes in matters of penitences, or of justice, 
had assumed improper proportions, and Charles VII resolved to 
put an end to abuses of this character. 

He had, moreover, numerous allies: the townspeople, exasperated 
at the sight of the money of the kingdom flowing towards Rome; 
the nobility, who wished to recover their rights of patronage; 
the clergy, who were indignant at the sight of foreign prelates 
performing a multitude of services and possessing a great part of 
the benefices; and the University, which had attempted to reform 
the Church in the Councils of Constance and Basel, and which 
desired to bring about a national reform of the Church of 
France. An assembly was called together at Bourges, June 5th, 
1438, under the presidency of the king, which drew up the great 
ordinance known under the name of the Pragmatic Sanction of 

Bourges. 

17. The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438).— The 

preamble of the royal ordinance denounced the '* unbridled am- 
bition " of the court of Rome, and its " insatiable cupidity." It 
confirmed a part of the decrees of the Councils of Constance and 



HUMILIATION OF THE UNIVERSITY 125 

Basel. Œcumenical councils were to meet every ten years. Their 
authority was to be superior to that of the popes. The Pragmatic 
Sanction re-established the principle of the election of the bishops 
by the chapters, and of the abbots by the community of monks. 
The nobles and the king might present candidates for the churches 
of which they had the patronage. The annates, the reservations, 
and the expectative graces were to be almost completely sup- 
pressed. Appeals to the court of Rome were to be impossible; 
and the Papacy was to send to France judges delegated with the 
power of hearing them. The Pragmatic Sanction prescribed order 
and decorum in the celebration of religion, and it forbade dramatic 
spectacles in the interior of the churches, particularly the " Fête 
of Fools." 

Such was the Pragmatic Sanction, which consecrated the lib- 
erties of the Gallican Church, and was to be so popular up to 
the XVIII century. But if Charles VII attempted to organize 
a national church entirely independent of the Holy See in matters 
of discipline and administration, he strove, at the same time, to 
re-establish friendly relations between France and the Papacy. 

18. The Humiliation of the University. — The great half- 
lay and half-ecclesiastical institution which called itself the Uni- 
versity of Paris had seriously compromised itself during the 
troubles of the Hundred Years' War. It had fought against 
Charles VII, had approved the treaty of Troyes, had supported 
the government of Bedford, and had labored for and applauded 
the condemnation of Joan of Arc. Charles VII had diminished 
its importance by creating at Poitiers a rival university, while the 
English established one at Caen. It is true that in 1436 Charles 
VII consented to confirm its privileges; but during 1437 he under- 
mined them upon two points: their exemption from taxation, and 
their privilege of jurisdiction. He made the outside auxiliaries of 
the University, the booksellers, the scriveners, etc. (suppôts), pay 
taxes. In 1446, he subordinated the professors, the scholars, and 
the suppôts to the jurisdiction of Parlement, which at once took 
away from the University the right of superseding its courts, and 
declared the suppôts subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop of 
Paris in personal cases. Henceforth the University tribunal lost 
all its importance. 

Charles VII likewise began to reform the internal discipline 



126 FRANCE IN THE XV CENTURY 

of its faculties. In 1451 Cardinal Estouteville, the papal legate, 
assisted by commissioners selected in the Parlement, drew up a 
new statute whose most important article authorized doctors of 
medicine to marry. This was an attack leveled directly at the 
ecclesiastical character of* the University. 

19. The Aristocracy. — The king had more trouble in re- 
ducing the nobility to subjection than he had in the case of the 
clergy and the University. During the civil wars they had 
adopted habits of independence and of pillaging. Gentlemen 
struck hands with professional brigands for the despoiling of the 
provinces. The most illustrious leaders of the royal army were 
as formidable to the people as were their chief enemies. Acts of 
violence were so frequent that royal justice was powerless to 
repress them, since the upper classes set the example. The duke 
of Berry poniarded the duke of Flanders, the Sire de Giac assassi- 
nated his wife, a count of Gueldre killed his father, and a duke 
of Brittany put his brother to death. The lord of Maurepas 
threw his captives into pits, and had them stoned to death. 

But the most frightful bandit which this cruel and robber no- 
bility produced is Gilles de Retz or de Raiz, the " Bluebeard " of 
tradition. He possessed great domains in Brittany, Maine, and 
Poitou, and Charles VII had made him Marshal of France in 
1429. His acquired habits of violence and pleasure drove him, 
when he was no longer at war, into a search for the most insensate 
and atrocious pleasures. He maintained a princely establishment 
in his rich house of Suza at Nantes, and had a guard of two hun- 
dred horsemen, together with a chapel of thirty priests. Having 
fallen into the hands of sorcerers, he became one of the most 
celebrated necromancers of the time, and according to popular be- 
lief had signed a compact with Beelzebub. Little by little it was 
reported that young boys and girls entered the service of the duke 
and disappeared. For eight years his high birth and the terror 
which he inspired enabled him to act with impunity, but the bishop 
of Nantes finally dared to denounce him to the duke of Brittany, 
and he was arrested with his accomplices and brought to trial. At 
Machecoul and at Champtoce there were found the bodies of more 
than one hundred and forty children, whose heads had been severed 
from their bodies, and whose blood had served in his magical opera- 
tions. Having for a time attempted to clear himself by means of 



THE THIRD ESTATE 127 

arrogance and intimidation, Gilles humbled himself, asked pardon 
of God and man, and on the 27th of October, 1440, was publicly 
strangled in an open field at Nantes. 

Charles VH displayed as much ability as he did vigor in his 
policy toward this turbulent and depraved nobility. He excluded 
from his Council, so far as he was able, the members of the high 
nobility. He forbade the nobles to establish a constabulary; 
abolished the right of private warfare, permitted the peasants to 
resist the violences of the soldiery by force of arms ; took from the 
nobles the right of levying the taxes without his authority; and 
had all titles to possession of land and revenues investigated. 
Finally, the creation of dragoon companies {compagnies d'ordon- 
nances) replaced the feudal army by a national army. 

These reforms were occasioned by the Praguerie. Charles VH 
had the skill to repress all attempts at rebellion by a happy mix- 
ture of severity and kindness. He put to death, by drowning, 
the bastard of Bourbon, who dared to brave him at Bar-sur-Aube, 
at the head of a band of " skinners," but he pardoned the count 
of Armagnac, and the duke of Alencon after he had condemned 
them to death for treason, and he profited by these sentences to 
take from one of them his regalian rights, and from the other his 
duchy. " All the lords have become like women," says the 
Burgher of Paris. Louis XI completed the triumph of the mon- 
archy, but his policy was far from being either as able or as 
equitable as that of his father, since Charles was obeyed without 
being hated. 

20. The Third Estate. — After the great outburst of pa- 
triotism which carried the nation onv^ard in the footsteps of Joan 
of Arc, and after the intoxication of joy which the truce of 1444 
occasioned, which resembled that of a prisoner emerging from 
the darkness of a dungeon into the open air, sunlight, and liberty, 
the minds of men became calmer ; the population ruined, but forti- 
fied by suffering, set itself to work with a silent intensity which 
was in sharp contrast to the noisy and disorderly fanaticism of 
the XIV century. Every one became more modest and the Third 
Estate renounced its premature ambition. " It was a century of 
business, succeeding upon a century of theories and of revolution." 
Commerce took new scope; the merchants of Italy and of Ger- 
many began to come to the fairs of Champagne; industrial cor- 



128 FRANCE IN THE XV CENTURY 

porations were re-established; political and commercial alliances 
assured a good understanding with Scotland, Denmark, Aragon, 
Castile, Flanders, and Italy; and France, impoverished and de- 
populated by the Hundred Years' War, set herself to work and 
to hope. 

In fine, the royalty of the XV century had broken the old 
powers of the Middle Ages, and had founded a new unity of 
France upon a powerful hierarchy of public servants, devoted 
to the crown, upon a system of permanent taxes, and upon the 
force of a permanent army. " Always absolute in principle," says 
Rambaud, " it became almost absolute in fact. For the first time 
the ideal Roman State conceived of by the Merovingians, and 
by the first Capetians, was realized. The king was at last a 
sovereign, and he had subjects." 



CHAPTER IX 

THE GERMAN EMPIRE FROM 1273 TO 1347. THE 

HAPSBURGS. THE SWISS. THE HOUSE 

OF LUXEMBURG. 

1. Rudolf of Hapsburg. — The period from 1256 to 1273 in 
Germany, closely following upon the extinction of the Hohen- 
staufen line, is known as the Great Interregnum, or more descrip- 
tively, as the era of club-law. During this time each man was 
for himself, and Germany rapidly approached a condition of 
anarchy. Under these circumstances, almost any kind of govern- 
ment would serve the ends of the turbulent nobles, when they 
went through the form of electing a new ruler. Nevertheless, it 
was largely by maintaining some form of government that Ger- 
many recovered from the terrible situation in which she found 
herself at the end of the XIII century without other mutilation 
than the loss of Switzerland, whose constitution as a distinct nation 
is the great event in the history of central Europe during the XIV 
century. These years of confusion and civil war favored the 
election of some German prince who would not be powerful 
enough to disturb the territorial sovereignty of the nobles but 
who would be sufficiently energetic to arrest the progress of 
anarchy. From his various qualifications Ottokar II, King of 
Bohemia, would seem to have been the candidate best fitted for 
this office. To his electoral dignity and his kingdom of Bohemia 
he united the duchies of Austria, Moravia, Styria, Carniola, and 
Carinthia, but in spite of his fitness he held aloof and no one 
considered him seriously. 

Louis of Bavaria, Count Palatine, was also set aside as a 
candidate, because of jealousy, no doubt. Frederick of Hohen- 
zollern, Burgrave of Nuremberg, who enjoyed great popularity 
among the free towns and the nobility below princely rank, there- 
upon advanced the candidacy of his cousin and father-in-law, 

129 



130 THE HAPSBURGS 

Rudolf, Count of Hapsburg and Zurich, Lord of Lucerne and 
Landgrave of Alsace, and he was chosen by the electors assembled 
at Frankfort, in 1273, under the presidency of the archbishop of 
Mayence. Ottokar had neither taken part in the election nor 
given his approbation, but Pope Gregory X recognized Rudolf 
as King of the Romans in 1274 in return for the confirmation to the 
pope of all the property of the Holy See and the recognition of 
Charles of Anjou as king of Sicily. 

2. The Hapsburgs. — There is in existence a genealogical table 
which makes the Hapsburgs descend from a duke of the Alamanni 
in the VH century, but in point of fact, their most authentic Haps- 
burg ancestor would seem to have been Gontram the Rich, an 
Alsatian noble at the end of the X century. His descendants 
acquired territory in Switzerland, in Aargau, where one of them, 
Werner, who died in 1096, took the title of Count of Hapsburg, 
{Habichtsburg, Vulture^ s Castle). To the landgraviate of Upper 
Alsace, with which they had been invested in the XI century, 
they joined numerous possessions in the basin of the Aar, and 
then added the Forest Cantons of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, 
of which they were the protectors, or advocat'i, as far as Lake 
Constance and the Rhine. Rudolf, before he was king of Ger- 
many, ruled over important domains in the region of the Black 
Forest. The emperor, Frederick H, was his godfather, and 
Rudolf's fidelity to the imperial cause had never relaxed. Ex- 
communicated by Innocent IV, he had followed Conradin into 
Italy, and had fought with Ottokar against the pagan Slavs of 
Prussia. 

This proud knight with his tall form and affable manners was 
an agreeable sovereign to those who felt the necessity for an 
energetic central power and at the same time an acceptable one 
to the electors who regarded without suspicion this nobleman 
whose domains were on the mountainous and wooded frontiers 
of the Empire; but some of them had misgivings as to his spirit 
of money-making and the gift for constant acquisition which 
had been the distinguishing trait of his ancestors. He was 
always wanting some one's property. " Lord God," cried the 
bishop of Basel, whose city he took at the moment of his elec- 
tion, '' hold well to your throne, or this Rudolf will take it from 
you." 



THE LAST OF THE PRZEMYSLIDS 131 

3. The Last of the Przemyslids of Bohemia. Ottokar 
II. — In order to secure strong alliances for himself, Rudolf, the 
Hapsburg ruler, immediately married three of his daughters, re- 
spectively, to the count Palatine, the duke of Saxony, and the 
margrave of Brandenburg; Frederick of Hohenzollern received 
the inheritance of the burgraviate of Nuremberg, and to this w^ere 
joined the domains which later formed the margraviates of 
Anspach and of Bayreuth. 

In the mind of the king, these new allies would help him in 
acquiring a territorial power necessary alike to the interests of 
the Hapsburgs and to the royal authorit}^ To this end, also, in 
1274, he obtained from the Diet a decision which annulled all 
acquisitions made by German princes since 1250, unless they had 
been the object of regular investiture. 

This action was equivalent to demanding back from Ottokar, 
the king of Bohemia, the widely extended territory which had 
been recently conquered by him. At the same time Ottokar was 
summoned to the Diet of Augsburg to render homage to the King 
of the Romans. He is credited with saying, " What does Rudolf 
want? He has served me. I have paid him. We are even " ; but 
he was not rid so easily of the Hapsburg. Attacked by Rudolf, 
Louis of Bavaria, and Frederick of Hohenzollern, placed under 
the ban of the Empire, and abandoned by his nobility, Ottokar 
sued for peace and obtained it by surrendering to the conqueror 
Austria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria. His son, Wenzel, mar- 
ried a daughter of Rudolf by a contract which determined the in- 
heritance of Bohemia, later to fall to the Hapsburg house. Finally, 
in spite of his pride, Ottokar consented to render homage upon 
his knees before his late esquire. The ceremony was to take place 
upon a bridge over the Danube, under a tent which was to con- 
ceal from the two armies the spectacle of Ottokar's humiliation; 
but at the moment when he was bowed before his suzerain, the 
tent was snatched away and the triumph of Rudolf was revealed 
(1276). 

Two years later, Ottokar believed that he was strong enough 
to reconquer his lost provinces, thanks to the discontent which the 
success of Rudolf had excited in the minds of the German princes ; 
but he waited too long in attacking his adversary, who had estab- 
lished himself at Vienna in order to watch him. The Hungarians, 



132 THE HAPSBURGS 

moreover, came to the aid of Rudolf, and August 26th, 1278, in 
the plain of Marchfeld, at the confluence of the March and the 
Danube, Ottokar was vanquished and killed. He was one of the 
most brilliant of the princes of the XHI century, and to the 
Slavic Czechs of Bohemia he remains a national hero and a 
martyr. The victory of Marchfeld definitely determined, from 
this time on, the destiny and the power of the Hapsburgs. 

4. Rudolf and the German Princes. — Rudolf did not dare 
to annex Bohemia, but he contented himself with renewing the 
conventions of 1276, and committed the tutelage of Wenzel, the 
son of Ottokar, to Otto of Brandenburg, who was working for 
the Germanization of the country. 

Nevertheless, the eminently practical spirit of the first Hapsburg 
was alarming to the great vassals. He refused to go into Italy. 
" It is," he said, " a lion's cave. Any one can easily see how to 
get in, but no one knows how he will come out." He preferred 
to do without the title of Emperor, which it was necessary to go 
to Rome to secure; and in like manner he yielded to Pope 
Nicholas III everything that he asked. He renounced the exer- 
cise of the least authority over the Italian towns, but, true to his 
character, he made them pay to the last farthing for the inde- 
pendence which he allowed them. 

Thus he obstinately remained in Germany, maintaining his 
suzerainty over the vassals, who had been created in the royal 
domains in the kingdom of Aries, in Dauphiny, Savoy, and 
Franche-Comté, and especially watching at close range all dis- 
turbers of the public peace. One day he destroyed the castles 
of the Black Forest. At another time he punished one of the 
most powerful brigands in Germany, Eberhard of Wurtemberg. 

Finally, in the face of these sudden and unexpected forays of 
the king, the barons of Franconia, Bavaria, Thuringia, and Swabia, 
for the time being, had to give up molesting the security and com- 
merce of Germany b^^ their private wars, or their expeditions 
upon the highways. Thus he was obviously looking to the pacifica- 
tion of Germany and to the aggrandizement of his house rather 
than to a fame secured by distant adventures, and he was repaid 
for this wise policy by a just popularity. 

5. Rudolf and the Towns. — The towns, under his rule, con- 
tinued the progress which they had already begun. Rudolf relied 



ADOLF OF NASSAU 133 

upon their support, granted to the royal towns the rights of counts, 
and pronounced the most severe penalties against all disturbers of 
the peace. The increased prosperity of Germany was very marked 
upon the return of a regular government. Rudolf felt, at length, 
that he could ask the Diet of Frankfort to bestow upon his eldest 
son, Albert, the title of King of the Romans, which the German 
kings assumed till they were crowned emperors. This had been 
sufficient for Rudolf; but the princes united against a pretension 
which appeared to them to be an attempt to make the imperial 
crown hereditary, and Rudolf died in July, 1291, balked in his 
last ambition. This old man of seventy-eight, with his strong 
characteristics, his Roman nose, and his ceaseless activity, has 
served as a type of the imperial Hapsburg family, and some of 
his descendants, Maximilian I, for example, recall him strikingly in 
phj'sical aspect, as well as in insatiable cupidity. 

6. The House of Austria. — Although they had to wait until 
the middle of the XV century in order to lay their hands definitely 
on the imperial crown, the Austrian princes continued to increase 
their power. Their ambition, even then, justified the device made 
for them in the XV century: J EI OU, which was to signify, re- 
spectively, in Latin, Aquila Electa Juste Omnia Vincit; Austriae 
Est Imperare Orbi Univcrso; or in German: Allés Erdreich 1st 
Oesterreichs Untertan (The whole world is subject to Austria), 
and they put into practice the policy implied in a famous distich, 
which explains the growth of the Hapsburgs by means of fortunate 
marriages. 

Bella gérant alii; tu, Felix Austria, nube! 
Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus. 

7. Adolf of Nassau (1292-1298).— After Rudolf's death 
Germany threatened to return to the anarchy of the Great 
Interregnum. As his successor the German princes chose, after a 
long hesitation, an insignificant count, Adolf of Nassau. He 
was unable to take possession of Thuringia, where a horrible 
family quarrel had broken out between the landgrave, Albert the 
Depraved, and his son, Frederick the Bitten, but after receiving 
subsidies from Edward I of England, he pretended to take aggres- 
sive action against Philip the Fair, by claiming imperial sovereignty 



134 THE SWISS 

over the counties of Burgundy and Flanders. Philip responded 
haughtily to the pretensions of the King of the Romans, and pur- 
chased the neutrality of this needy and feeble king. 

In him some have seen a defender of the Empire against France, 
but as a matter of fact he simply capitalized his inactivity, and he 
soon had almost every one against him. His former chief sup- 
porter, the archbishop of Mainz, Gerard of Eppenstein, in agree- 
ment with the electors of Saxony and of Bradenburg, now offered 
the crown to Albert of Austria, who attacked Adolf at Goellheim, 
not far from Worms. The King of the Romans was killed and 
Albert I had his election made regular on the 20th of July, 1298, 
and himself crowned August 24th, at Aix-la-Chapelle. 

8. Albert of Austria (1298-1308).— Pope Boniface VIII 
was at this time in the thick of his quarrel with the lay powers. 
Reconciled with difficulty and only for a brief time with Philip the 
Fair, he protested from 1298 on against the election of Albert, 
which had not received the sanction of the Holy See; but when 
the pope was again embroiled with the king of France, he con- 
cealed his impotence in Germany behind a tardy approbation, and 
Albert I, a true Hapsburg, looked about him for new acquisitions. 
The death of Wenzel V, Ottokar's son, in 1306, enabled Albert 
to transfer the crown of Bohemia to the head of his own son, 
Rudolf, who died in 1307. Bohemia, after an interval, fell to 
Wenzel's son-in-law, John of Luxemburg, and remained in the 
possession of Luxemburg till 1437. 

Albert was beaten in Thuringia by Frederick the Bitten and 
his brother in 1307, and finally, during a popular insurrection 
which had broken out in the Forest Cantons of Switzerland, the 
emperor was killed at the fording of the Reuss, by his nephew, 
John, to whom he had refused any part in the Austrian succession. 
Thus, the efforts made by the house of Austria to bring about in 
Germany some degree of unity and cohesion, were once more 
rendered futile. 

9. The Forest Cantons of Switzerland. — The hostile feel- 
ing between the Hapsburgs and the Forest Cantons of Uri, 
Schwyz, and Unterwalden dates back a great deal further than 
the reign of Albert. During the reign of the emperor Frederick 
II (1212-1250), the three Forest Cantons had obtained the 
ratification of their liberties against the predecessors of Rudolf, 



THE LEGEND OF WILLIAM TELL 135 

who were attempting to transform their acknowledged rights, 
that is to say, as protectors and high justiciars, into an hereditary 
domination. At the same time that Fribourg and Morat, Lucerne 
and Berne, Fribourg and Berne were forming defensive alliances, 
Schwyz united with Uri and Unterwalden, then with Lucerne 
and Zurich in 1245. 

When Rudolf of Hapsburg became King of the Romans, there- 
fore, he exerted himself to break down all resistance upon the 
part of these Swiss Leagues, and having conquered Berne, Fribourg, 
Claris, and Lucerne, he had everywhere imposed the authority 
of his bailiffs, and they crushed the people with taxes. Conse- 
quently, the Forest Cantons heard with joy of the death of 
Rudolf, July 15th, 1 29 1, and almost immediately they held at 
Brunnen an assembly where, without contesting the feudal rights 
of the nobles and abbots, they demanded their secular liberties and 
their privilege of holding directly from the Empire. They 
swore that they would receive no foreign judge in their valleys, 
that they would submit all their common differences to arbitration, 
and they promised mutual aid in case of attack. 

To speak exactly, it is from the oath and the confederation of 
Brunnen (1291) that the beginning of the Swiss independence 
should be dated. 

10. The Struggle Against the Austrian Princes (1291- 
1315). — In spite of the irritation of Albert of Austria, who 
wished to impose the authority of his bailiffs upon the Swiss, the 
Forest Cantons obtained, first from Adolf of Nassau, then from 
Henry VII of Luxemburg, the confirmation of all their privileges. 
Upon the death of Henry VII, the Hapsburgs hoped to regain all 
the ground which they had lost, but when Frederick of Austria 
sent his brother Leopold to subdue the Forest Cantons, the Aus- 
trian knights were crushed and massacred by the Swiss in the 
pass of Morgarten, November 14th, 13 15. 

11. The Legend of William Tell. — Legend has immortalized 
the origin of Swiss liberty and of the Swiss confederation in the 
history of William Tell, the heroic peasant of Altdorf, who, hav- 
ing refused to salute the cap of the bailiff Gessler, was condemned, 
in order to avoid an infamous penalty, to shoot an apple from the 
head of his own son. Victorious in that trial, he took vengeance 
by killing Gessler, and his death was the signal for the rising of 



136 THE SWISS 

the Forest Cantons, whose three representatives are said to have 
united in a solemn oath in the field of Riitli, opposite Brunnen. 

This legend can no longer be regarded as historical. It is first 
found in chronicles which were written between two and three 
hundred years after the events and is often contradicted by the 
documents. Besides this, the resemblance of the Swiss version 
to the narrative of Saxo Grammaticus in the XII century is so 
close that there is reason for thinking that the Swiss historians 
borrowed the William Tell legend from this source. It did not 
make its appearance in Switzerland before the end of the XV 
century. 

12. The Swiss Confederations. — The independence of the 
Forest Cantons was assured after Morgarten. They concluded 
at Brunnen a second perpetual league. Bound by their oath 
{Eidgenossen) to the common defense, they engaged never to 
make an agreement with any foreign power without the consent of 
all the confederates. These were the modest origins of the 
Helvetic constitution. Its very simplicity enabled the neighboring 
towns to ally themselves with the league of the Cantons without 
compromising their independence. This Lucerne did in 1332, then 
Berne, which remained for a long time an imperial and Bur- 
gundian town, but which secured the support of the Forest 
Cantons against the aristocracy of Oberland and Fribourg. 

The Bernese nobles were beaten by the confederates at the 
battle of Laupen in 1339, where appeared for the first time the 
red flag with the white cross of the Swiss confederation. Zurich, 
another imperial town, ended by joining also with the Forest 
Cantons, against Austria. The war with Zurich (1351-1355) 
ended to the disadvantage of the Austrian Prince, Albert II, at 
the peace of Ratisbon, thanks to the compliance of the emperor, 
Charles IV of Luxemburg, who readily renounced his rights of 
suzerainty over the Swiss. During these hostilities Zug and 
Claris were joined to the league. Thus was formed the first league 
of the eight Cantons, of which the Forest Cantons with Zug 
formed the center, but Claris and Berne could not enter into re- 
lations with Zurich or Lucerne except by their intermediary. 

After a short period of peace the struggle with the Hapsburgs 
was resumed. In 1386, Duke Leopold III, the Pious, puffed up by 
his recent acquisition of Triest, entered upon a campaign designed 



THE HOUSE OF LUXEMBURG 137 

to crush, once for all, the Swiss Confederation. He laid siege 
to Sempach, which the Forest Cantons had admitted to their 
league. Fifteen hundred confederates offered him battle there on 
the loth of July, 1386. His knights, who had been made to dis- 
mount, were put to flight by the violence of the attack of their 
adversaries, and he himself was killed. 

Later, a poetic tradition gave the credit of winning the battle 
to Arnold von Winkelried, who, according to the legend, in order 
to make a breach in the Austrian ranks, drew to his own breast 
the pikes of several knights. A new victory of the men of Claris 
and Schw)^z over the Austrians at Naefels, led to a treaty which 
was converted into a definitive peace in 141 2. Austria then re- 
nounced definitively her pretensions to Schwyz, Unterwalden, 
Lucerne, Zug, and Claris. 

Profound differences existed in the local constitutions of the 
Cantons: w^th the Forest Cantons, the communal assembly named 
the officers, voted the taxes, and made the laws; at Zurich, the 
guilds shared the power with the town patriciate ; while Berne 
had a completely aristocratic constitution; but in spite of frequent 
quarrels between the confederates, their power grew daily. In 
137O) by a decree called the Pfaffenbrief (concerning priests) they 
subordinated ecclesiastical to civil justice. In 1393, by the conven- 
tion of Sempach, they mutually guaranteed each the other against 
the excesses of the soldiery. The admission of new Cantons 
(Fribourg, Soleure, Basel, Schaffhausen, and Appenzell) brought 
their number up to thirteen at the beginning of the XVI century, 
and the alliance with the Valais and the Crisons definitely took 
away from the Cerman Empire the suzerainty over the entire 
region included between the Alps, the Rhine, and the Jura. Aus- 
tria made an alliance with the Swiss, in 1474, and it was in re- 
sponse to her appeal that they took up arms against Charles the 
Bold. 

13. The House of Luxemburg. — This dismemberment 
of the Austrian possessions may be accounted for especially by 
the weakness of the successors of Albert I, the princes of the 
house of Luxemburg, or the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria. In 1308, 
after the violent death of Albert of Austria, the votes of the 
electors were solicited by two competitors; Charles of V^alois, 
the brother of the king of France, and Henry of Luxemburg, 



138 THE HOUSE OF LUXEMBURG 

whose son, John, had been called to the throne of Bohemia in 
1309 as the husband of Elizabeth, the daughter of Ottokar. 
Pope Clement V, who was urged by Philip the Fair to act in 
behalf of the king's brother, preserved his neutrality, and the elec- 
tors naturally inclined to a German prince and one belonging to a 
relatively obscure house, rather than to a stranger who would 
bring with him the instincts for centralization which were char- 
acteristic of the Capetian race. 

14. Henry VII (1308-1313).— Henry of Luxemburg was 
chosen in 1308, as Emperor Henry VII. The domains of Lux- 
emburg, situated in the north of Germany, were of considerable 
extent, but the dynasty itself was of recent origin and descended 
from the counts of Limburg, who had inherited Luxemburg 
only in the middle of the XHI century. The first of the Lux- 
emburgers, Henry, was a knight-errant who had died in the 
Holy Land in 1270, and he left to his descendants not only his 
adventurous spirit, his ambition, and his taste for great achieve- 
ments, but also that mobility of temperament which did not permit 
them to succeed. Of such temperament was his grandson. Em- 
peror Henry VII, who, once upon the imperial throne, con- 
ceived the dream of a universal monarchy, but failed pitifully 
in Italy. 

15. Henry VII, the Pope, and the Ghibellines of Italy 
(1308-1314). — He made preparations from the beginning of 
his reign to have himself crowned at Rome. In that unhappy 
land, torn by the struggles of the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, he 
planned to make a display of the imperial power. Violence and 
anarchy reigned in Lombardy, at Verona, at Padua, and espe- 
cially at Florence. Pope Boniface VHI everywhere supported 
the faction of Italian independence, the Guelfs, and in Florence 
the quarrels had become so acute that the Guelfs themselves were 
divided into the Whites and the Blacks. The great poet Dante 
had been exiled with the Whites in 1303, and from that time on, 
in the absence of the popes, who had settled with Clement V at 
Avignon, he had no hope for the pacification of Italy except by 
the imperial authority, and had become Ghibelline in his exile. 
Thus, he received with great enthusiasm the news of the arrival 
of the "Great Henry" (13 10). 

Henry VII disappointed these hopes. He delayed in Lorn- 



THE STRUGGLE OF THE EMPIRE 139 

bardy and allowed the Guelfs time to summon to their aid 
Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, who fortified himself at Rome, 
in the Leonine City. Clement V, a true Gascon, then refused 
to authorize the coronation anywhere but in Saint Peter's, which 
was at the time held by the Guelfs; but the emperor had him- 
self officially crowned at the Capitol by the cardinals. This 
was the sole result of his expedition. In vain he attempted to 
re-establish the Ghibellines in Florence; the city successfully de- 
fended itself, and the emperor, after wandering for almost a 
year between the Tiber and the Arno, died of fatigue and 
chagrin, August 24th, 13 13, at Buonconvento, halfway be- 
tween Florence and Rome. Henry likewise failed in his efforts 
to restore the kingdom of Aries, but succeeded in gaining Bo- 
hemia for his son John. 

16. Louis of Bavaria. Frederick the Fair (1314-1330). 
— The reign of his successor, Frederick of Austria, was to be even 
more disappointing. John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, son 
of Henry VII, who might have succeeded, was only nineteen 
years old. He was, besides, a mercurial but brilliant prince, made 
for knightly adventures rather than for imperial office. He con- 
tented himself with opposing the candidacy of Frederick the 
Fair, Duke of Austria, son of Albert I, and he was one of the 
electors who chose Louis of Bavaria as emperor (1314), a vigor- 
ous and active prince, but more than Henry VII occupied with 
his hereditary estates. 

The electors were divided. Some of them supported Louis, 
while others at the same time proclaimed Frederick, Duke of 
Austria, as emperor, at Cologne. A civil war then broke out 
which did not end until 1322. Beaten at Miihldorf-on-the-Inn, 
Frederick the Fair was made prisoner, and was not set at liberty 
until 1325. He renounced his pretensions, but preserved the 
title of King of the Romans and was made responsible for the 
government of Germany during the absence of Louis IV. 

17. The Struggle of the Empire and the Papacy. — In 
order to strengthen his position, it was thought necessary that 
Louis of Bavaria should have himself crowned at Rome. The 
pope, John XXII, who had supported the pretensions of Fred- 
erick the Fair, on the pretext of the illegality of the election of 
13 14, now attempted to overthrow the Ghibellines in Italy, and 



HO THE HOUSE OF LUXEMBURG 

attacked the Visconti of Milan, who were the leaders of the 
imperial party in Lombardy. Louis thereupon took them under his 
protection, and was excommunicated by the pope. 

A violent struggle, carried on by means of letters and decrees, 
began between the followers of the pope and those of Louis IV, 
but the reconciliation of Frederick the Fair with the emperor 
(1325) took away from the sovereign pontiff the pretext for 
hostility which he had assumed. John XXH then revived against 
his adversary the candidacy of the king of France (Charles IV), 
which no one, however, took seriously. Louis of Bavaria there- 
upon lost patience, and descended into Italy. Although indiffer- 
ently received at Milan, he entered Pisa, and the Romans, in 
1328, received him gladly as the enemy of a French pope. He 
was anointed by two excommunicated archbishops, and was 
crowned emperor by the Syndics of Rome and by Sciarra Colonna, 
representing the Roman people. He deposed John XXII, whom 
he replaced by the anti-pope Nicholas, but he could not long 
maintain his popularity, and, recalling the premature death of 
Henry VII, precipitately returned to Germany in 1329. 

18. The Pragmatic Sanction. — Frederick the Fair died the 
following year. His brother, Albert the Cripple, threatened to 
claim the Empire, while at the same time John of Bohemia was 
led by his adventurous spirit to hurl himself upon Lombardy in 
defiance of the rights of the emperor ; but, always in motion, more 
often in Paris and in Luxemburg than in Prague, John was not 
formidable, and, at the end of three years, had to leave Italy. 
His son Charles, whom he had wished to make emperor, and 
who had the support of France, had to content himself for the 
moment, with Moravia. 

John also watched the emperor, Louis, who knowing himself 
to be threatened, desired to make his peace with the Holy See; 
but John XXII remained inflexible. Benedict XII, on the other 
hand, would have been glad to remove the excommunication which 
had rested upon the emperor, Louis of Bavaria, for so long, but 
the threats of Philip VI of Valois, inspired by John of Bohemia, 
prevented his doing so. The emperor then spoke of abdicating, 
whereupon the electors united against the pretension of the popes 
to judge imperial elections. 

They met at Rense, July i6th, 1338, and declared that the 



THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION 141 

candidate chosen by the electors was the king of Germany, with- 
out the papal confirmation. The Diet of Frankfort transformed 
this declaration (the Pragmatic Sanction) into a law of the 
Empire, affirming that the imperial crown came from God and 
not from the pope, and that the emperor was not subject to the 
pope, but rather the pope to the Councils. 

Having sought support against Philip VI and Benedict XII 
from Edward III, King of England, whom he made vicar of the 
Empire, Louis tried again to become reconciled with the Papacy 
when Clement VI, formerly tutor of Charles of Moravia, occu- 
pied the Holy See in 1342. He desired especially to devote him- 
self to the administration of Bavaria, and to place his son, 
Louis II, in Brandenburg, where the Ascanian house had just 
become extinct. 

Clement VI could not be moved, however. Louis of Bavaria 
was again deposed by the pope for his crimes and a usurpation 
for which he was not to blame, and the electors who had pro- 
tested against the Papacy now yielded to its authority, and 
elected Charles of Moravia, the former pupil of the pope, as 
King of the Romans under the name of Charles IV. Death, 
which came to Louis IV the following year (1347), must have 
been for him a welcome relief. For more than thirty years 
he had attempted in vain to be of any use to Germany. The 
struggle against the popes of Avignon, which the great vassals 
of Germany had imposed upon him, had taken on, from the 
obstinacy of the two factions, the aspect of an actual schism. Ger- 
many thus found itself by this opposition to the Holy See, pre- 
pared in advance for the struggle of creeds; and among the 
causes of disturbance, which the reign of the unhappy Bavarian 
left to Germany, this was certainly the most dangerous, since 
it paved the way for the revolt of John Hus of Bohemia in the 
XV century, and that of Luther in the XVI. 



CHAPTER X 

GERMANY IN THE XIV AND THE XV CENTURIES 

(1347-1519) 

1. Charles IV (1347-1378)— If a taste for intellectual mat- 
ters, a definite feeling that a stronger central power was needed 
in the Empire, and an administrative activity quite remarkable 
for the time could have sufficed to remedy the situation left by 
Louis of Bavaria, then Charles IV would have been the founder 
of a strong and united Germany; but this prince was still so 
much a part of his race and of his time as to prevent the realization 
of such ideas. Incapable, as he was, of remaining in one place, 
although already chosen king by one faction of the electors, he 
followed his father into the battle of Crecy, from which his 
enemies accuse him of having escaped by precipitate flight. Allied 
to the Hapsburgs, and secure in his hereditary estates of Bohemia, 
Charles now reconciled himself with the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria, 
and so was able to have his second wife, Anna, formally crowned 
queen at Aix-la-Chapelle. 

2. Charles IV in Italy. — Charles IV was hardly a knightly 
adventurer, inasmuch as his chief interest was the increase of his 
personal estates and the problem of rendering Bohemia prosperous. 
Thus, when Innocent VI encouraged him to come and be crowned 
at Rome, the King of the Romans, who had ruined himself in 
purchasing the submission of the great vassals of Germany, was 
content to cross the Alps in 1354 accompanied by three hundred 
knights only. He was determined to satisfy every one: the Vis- 
conti, by conferring upon them the Vicariate of Milan, where he 
took the Iron Crown ; the Venetians, whose establishment on the 
mainland he permitted ; and the pope, by not remaining in Rome 
except for the period of his coronation. He pardoned the Pisans 
for having attempted to drive him out by violence, and the Cre- 
monians for not having opened their gates to him except after 

142 



PROVISIONS OF THE GOLDEN BULL 143 

long hesitation. Yet this King of the Romans, who bartered 
with the Italians for titles and rights, and whom Petrarch re- 
garded with pity, brought back from beyond the Alps everything 
he had gone to get: his religious consecration to his title as 
Emperor, and a good round sum of money. 

3. The Golden Bull (1356). — His imperial authority in Ger- 
many and the prosperity of Bohemia were really closer to his 
heart than the domination of Italy. He dreamed of fixing once 
for all the vague and always contested traditions upon which the 
election of the emperors rested, their rights and those of the great 
vassals, and he flattered himself that by defining the rights of 
each and by distributing certain services at the court to the most 
formidable princes, he would be able to furnish to the emperor 
a means of making his political power felt from the center to the 
extremities. It was in this spirit that he called together the 
preliminary Diets where the Golden Bull was elaborated. This 
formal document was sealed with a seal or bulla, which was kept 
in a golden case, whence its name. 

Prepared at the Diet of Nuremberg, it was finished and pro- 
claimed at the Diet of Metz, December, 1356. Its thirty articles 
may be arranged under the following heads: Forms of the Im- 
perial Election; Functions and Rights of the Electors; Interreg- 
nums; The Public Peace. 

4. The Provisions of the Golden Bull. — The Forms of the 
Imperial Election. Three months, at the latest, after the death 
of an emperor the Diet of Frankfort, presided over by the arch- 
bishop of Mayence, should proceed to a new election, but this was 
valid only in case the electors gave their letters of consent 
{Willebriefe) . The emperor-elect then signed an election capitu- 
lation {Wahlcapitulation) in which he outlined the principles of 
government which he would follow, promising favors at the same 
time to the electors, and pledging himself to summon the Diet 
every year. Then there took place the coronation and the 
royal banquet, at which each of the electors performed the duties 
of his office. During this ceremony, which occurred in the great 
hall of the Hotel de Ville at Frankfort, " the Roemer," a sham 
stag or boar hunt was gotten up, and the people received a dis- 
tribution of food. 

The Functions and Rights of the Electors. The bull con- 



Î44 GERMANY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

secrated the rights of seven electors, " the seven branches of 
the sacred candlestick," "the seven pillars of the temple"; the 
archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, Treves, the duke of Saxe- 
Wittenberg, the count Palatine of the Rhine, the margrave of 
Brandenburg, and the king of Bohemia, vi^hom Charles IV nat- 
urally preferred to the Wittelsbach ruler of Bavaria. The three 
archbishops w^ere the arch-chancellors of the three kingdoms of 
Germany, Italy, and Aries. The duke of Saxony performed the 
functions of Grand Marshal and regulated matters of precedence 
at the Diet. The count Palatine, the Dapifer, served the em- 
peror at the imperial banquet. The margrave of Brandenburg, 
Lord High Chamberlain^ had analogous functions; and finally, 
the king of Bohemia was Grand Cup-bearer. Charles IV thought 
by the exercise of these functions to knit closer the bonds of 
vassalage between the emperors and the electors, but in reality 
the benefit was conferred altogether upon the electors. They 
were inviolable justiciars without appeal upon their own terri- 
tories, and, hereditary by agnation, that is to say, by descent in the 
male line, they had all the rights of regalia, and of holding their 
electoral possessions impartable. 

Interregnums. During Interregnums the elector of Saxony was 
to be Vicar of the Empire for the countries of the north (or the 
Saxons), the elector Palatine for the countries of the south (or 
the Swabians). 

The Public Peace. The emperor hoped perhaps for too much 
from the last articles of the bull, which interdicted private wars 
and coalitions between the nobles and the towns; but these were 
at that time innocent precautions against the seven sovereigns 
whose power the bull had definitely consecrated. It had thus con- 
firmed the principle of parceling out Germany, and every prince 
and noble, in his turn, aspired to territorial sovereignty {Landes- 
hoheit). 

5. The Weakness of Charles IV in Germany (1356-1378). 
— It should be added that Charles IV by the Golden Bull aroused 
the discontent of the Wittelsbachs and of the other princes who 
were deprived forever of all electoral rights, and that Pope Inno- 
cent VI protested against the disregard of what he called his 
" rights." The authority of the emperor in Germany thus be- 
came a mere form. In 1357, on a journey to Metz, he received 



BOHEMIA AT TIME OF CHARLES IV 145 

the quite empty homage of his nephew, Charles, Regent of France, 
for Dauphiny, and in 1365, his third coronation, at Aries, which 
by no means re-established his authority in Provence. Called to 
Italy by Pope Urban VI, he produced upon his journey an effect 
scarcely perceptible. 

Finally, when, to satisfy the whim of an old man, he wished 
to revisit France in 1378, Charles V, while receiving his uncle 
with the greatest honor, would not allow him to enter Paris 
upon a white hackney, a privilege, which, if granted, according to 
the ceremonial usage of the Middle Ages, would have given him 
the aspect of a suzerain, and the emperor left Dauphiny and 
Provence, having recognized the Dauphin Charles as Imperial 
Vicar. 

6. Bohemia at the Time of Charles IV. — This emperor, 
whose power was so much a matter of controversy in Europe, 
nevertheless, did a great deal for his house and especially for 
Bohemia. He yielded to one of his brothers the original posses- 
sions of his family, Luxemburg, and he signed with the Haps- 
burgs the treaty of Brunn (1364), which assured to either of 
the two houses the inheritance of that one whose line should 
first become extinct. The Wittelsbach ruler sold him Branden- 
burg {treaty of Furstenwald, 1373). The Estates of the Mark 
assented, in 1374, at Tangermiinde, to the hereditary union of 
Brandenburg and Bohemia, and Charles IV thus found himself the 
master of the commercial highways which led to the Baltic and 
to the German ocean ; but it was especially in Bohemia that his 
administrative talents left their traces. German himself and 
favorable to the Germans, he nevertheless took measures for the 
maintenance of the Czech tongue. He summoned the Diets regu- 
larly and submitted to them the code called Majestas Carolina, 
which the nobility indeed refused to accept, because it was too 
favorable to the peasants, but which was nevertheless put into 
force. 

A great builder, he constructed at Prague the famous Hradschin, 
which in some ways resembled the Louvre at Paris, and by its 
gilded roof suggested the edifices of the Orient. The Karls- 
briicke, the most beautiful bridge in Europe in the XIV century, 
adorned with statues of the kings of Bohemia, and terminated by 
a monumental gateway, joined the new town (Neustadt) and the 



146 GERMANY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

old Praha. In accordance with his orders Matthias of Arras be- 
gan the construction of a beautiful cathedral, which has all the 
grandeur and elegance of the French style and more than the 
austere melancholy which attaches itself to the monuments of 
the German towns of the Middle Ages. The castle of Karlstein, 
whose burgrave, the guardian of the royal crown, immediately 
became one of the principal personages of the realm, is also the 
work of Charles IV. 

7. Arts and Letters at the Court of Charles IV.— The 
creation of Charles IV which could not fail to have the most 
important consequences for Bohemia, however, is the University 
of Prague (1348). It was organized in imitation of the Uni- 
versity of Paris, with four nations, Bohemia, Poland, Bavaria, 
and Saxony. In the mind of Charles IV it was surely destined 
to stimulate the intellectual development of the Germans, but by 
force of circumstances it had to give way to the Czechs, and 
became at once the actual hearthstone of their national life and of 
the Slavic tongue. 

Charles IV had reason to be proud of his work in Bohemia. 
He hoped also that his German reforms would bear fruit when 
he had his son, Wenzel, elected King of the Romans. He died 
upon his return to Prague, and Bohemia has preserved a grateful 
memory of him. 

8. The German Towns of the XIV Century.— In Ger- 
many Charles IV found a great deal of discontent. The popular 
proverb, *' to conquer the world, it is necessary to have the power 
of Venice, the splendor of Augsburg, the spirit of Nuremberg, 
the cannon of Strasburg, and the gold of Ulm," although dating 
from the XVI century, was nevertheless true in the XIV and in 
the XV. The free imperial and episcopal cities felt their power, 
and were tempted to imitate the uprisings of the Forest Cantons 
of Switzerland. In spite of the ravages of the Black Death, their 
population had rapidly increased. Nuremberg, Augsburg, and 
Danzig grew from twenty thousand to fifty thousand inhabi- 
tants; Strasburg from sixteen thousand to thirty thousand, and 
their wealth was great. 

One needs but to examine the buildings of the German burghers 
of the XIV and XV centuries at Augsburg, Wiirzburg, Nurem- 
berg, Erfurt, Strasburg, and Cologne, to note the high façades, 



THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE 147 

rising one above the other, the carved corbels, and the gabled 
roofs, for evidence of the financial power of the bankers of 
Nuremberg and of Augsburg, and of the cloth merchants of 
Wiirzburg. 

9. The Struggle of the Towns and the Nobles of the XIV' 
Century. — With wealth came a corresponding pride. The burgh- 
ers of the towns sought to extend their jurisdiction and to protect 
the people outside their walls against the rapacity of the neigh- 
boring knights holding directly from the emperor, and this is 
one reason for the precautions of the Golden Bull against the 
arrogance and coalitions of the towns. The first League of the 
Rhine, formed in 1255, was renewed in 1354, ^^^ the Swabian 
League, formed in 1357, ended by extending over all south Ger- 
many. Leagues of the princes, on the other hand, opposed the 
leagues of the towns. 

To repress the violence of the pillaging knights, and to main- 
tain public peace, imperial justice was powerless. Recourse was 
had, therefore, to private associations, which corresponded to the 
most ancient Germanic traditions. Of this number was the 
Vehmgericht. It had its origin in the tribunals of free men, 
who in Westphalia had inherited the rights of justice of the counts. 
The archbishop of Cologne, heir of ducal rights, chose the Free 
Counts, and bestowed upon them the rights of justice. This 
organization was gradually imitated more and more, and in all 
north Germany the vehmic tribunals, which were very numerous 
in the XIV century, served to protect " religion, the public peace, 
and honor." But certain grave abuses arose because the trials 
were secret and their sentences of death were executed secretly. 
They attained their greatest power in the XV century, however, 
particularly in Westphalia (1420-1460). 

10. The Hanseatic League. — The commercial towns of north 
Germany also sought security for their trade in associations. 
Liibeck and Hamburg had formed their first alliance in 1241. 
Some forty years later, we find Liibeck, Rostock, Wismar, Stral- 
sund, Greifswald, Bremen, Hamburg, and Wisby joined with 
the towns of Livonia in a commercial confederation which, in 
imitation of the German Merchant Gilds of London, took the 
name of Hansa. The towns of Flanders, France, England, Den- 
mark, and Russia joined this Hansa. It formed in the XIV 



148 GERMANY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

century a confederation of eighty towns, which had four circles, 
or quarters, with Liibeck, Cologne, Danzig, and Brunswick as 
centers. Liibeck was the head of the confederation, and the 
Council, composed of representatives from the towns, met 
there. 

The Hansa had its fleets and its diplomacy. It made war 
upon Waldemar IV of Denmark, and in 1370 concluded with 
the Danish Diet the Peace of Stralsund, which recognized all 
its rights and privileges. It was further the chief agent in 
German expansion on the Baltic, but the dislocation of trade 
brought about by the discovery of the New World and the 
economic progress of England and the Netherlands led, at the 
end of the XV century, to a marked limitation in the operations 
of the Hansa. 

11. Wenzel (1378-1400).— The prosperity of Germany in 
the XV century is little short of marvelous when it is seen 
ceaselessly quivering under repeated shocks. The eldest son of 
Charles IV, Wenzel, whom history knows under the name of 
Wenzel " the Drunkard," was an educated prince, who had all 
the amiable traits of character which should have made him 
popular. Indeed, he was popular in his hereditary estates of 
Bohemia, where he controlled his people, and desired to have 
concord with Germany maintained. 

Thus, when the Swabian nobles formed the new League of the 
Golden Lion against their creditors of the free towns, Wenzel 
intervened, and by the Perpetual Peace of Eger attempted to 
render justice to both parties. He even had conceived the idea, 
and this is a noteworthy attempt at centralization, of dividing 
Germany into four circles: Saxony, the Rhine, the Danube, and 
Franconia, in order to assure the imperial superintendence there; 
but he was not made of the proper stuff to accomplish this revolu- 
tion. He was violent, capricious, his passion for the chase diverted 
his attention from serious affairs, and he ended by giving himself 
up to drunkenness. 

12. His Deposition in 1400. — In Bohemia itself he had 
aroused a number of discontented elements by protecting the 
party of religious reform and by persecuting the archbishop of 
Prague, who was an educated prelate, though fanatical and 
ambitious. Wenzel's kinsman, Jobst of Moravia, and his brother, 



THE EMPEROR SIGISMUND 149^ 

Sigismund, recently elected king of Hungary, placed themselves at 
the head of the discontented Bohemians. The king was imprisoned 
for a time, but he shortly afterwards resumed his power, and 
appeared at Rheims, where he attempted to regulate with Charles 
VI of France the question of the Great Schism, created by the 
simultaneous election of two popes, the one at Avignon, the other 
at Rome. The German princes seized this new occasion to get 
rid of him. He was accused of a thousand crimes, real or 
imaginary, and the elector Palatine, Rupert, was chosen em- 
peror at the instance of the pope of Rome, Boniface IX (1400), 
after which Wenzel had to content himself with being simply the 
king of Bohemia. 

13. Rupert of Bavaria (1400-1410).— The reign of Rupert 
showed still further the weakness into which the imperial power 
had fallen. Two electors. Saxony and Brandenburg, refused to 
obey him. After he had failed before Prague, to which place he 
had pursued Wenzel, one of his own partisans, the archbishop of 
Mayence, would not furnish troops for the expedition which the 
emperor was directing against Galeazzo Visconti in Italy, at the 
instigation of Pope Gregory XII. Abandoned, besides, by the 
greater part of his German following, Rupert was defeated at 
Brescia by John Galeazzo Visconti, whom he had appointed 
hereditary duke of Milan, and upon his return to Germany 
he found most of the princes armed against him. His death in 
1410 without doubt spared him the chagrin of a deposition. 

14. The Emperor Sigismund (1411-1437).— At once three 
of the Luxemburg princes solicited the votes of the electors: 
Wenzel, who, after ten years, was again ambitious for the title 
of emperor; his brother, Sigismund, King of Hungary and Mar- 
grave of Brandenburg; and finally, Jobst of Moravia. Jobst was 
elected, probably as the least to be feared, but he died almost 
at once, and this time the electors gave their unanimous vote to 
Sigismund. 

By his activity, his military talents, and his energy, Sigismund 
closes the Luxemburg era, and not without brilliancy, in spite 
of his pitiless treatment of the Hussites. At the Council of 
Constance, at the Council of Basel, and in his second voyage to 
Italy, when he was crowned at Rome in 1433, he persistently en- 
deavored, but without success, to put an end to the Great Schism, 



150 GERMANY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

which menaced Europe at a moment when the Ottomans on the 
Danube were threatening Germany with a danger of exceptional 
gravity. King of Bohemia, after the death of Wenzel, he»* suc- 
ceeded, after sixteen years of failure, in bringing to a close the 
Hussite War, which had proved so cruel for Germany. 

15. The Insurrection in Bohemia (1409-1419). — In 1400, 
Wenzel, betrayed by the German princes and embroiled with the 
archbishop of Prague, had turned to the Czechs, who, exasperated 
by the German encroachments, were looking about for some one 
who would favor their national independence, even in religious 
matters. John Hus, professor in the University of Prague, wished 
to have the Slavic language dominate in Bohemia and at the same 
time to spread the doctrines of John Wyclif, whose accusations of 
corruption made against the monks applied very properly to the 
high German clergy in Prague as well. Wenzel made friends 
with John Hus, and gave to the Czechs a preponderance in the 
University, which the German professors deserted in order to 
found the University of Leipzig (1409). Sigismund seized upon 
this new opportunity to rouse Bohemia against his brother, and 
invited John Hus and his disciple, Jerome of Prague, to come to 
the Council of Constance. They came, indeed, to Constance, but 
were both delivered over to the executioner in spite of their 
imperial safe-conduct. 

John Hus, a poet and one of the creators of Czech literature, 
and a religious reformer of unquestioned purity of life, became 
a martyr in the eyes of the Bohemians. Upon the news of his 
death, the people of Prague rose and drove out the archbishop. 
A formidable opposition now arose against the Catholic Church. 
One faction contented itself with demanding the communion in 
both kinds {utraque). These were the Calixtins, or Utraquists. 
Another faction, later called " the Taborites," were imbued with 
revolutionary and democratic ideas. Wenzel, old and without 
vigor, abandoned the reformers, and an ungovernable tumult 
broke out. This was marked by the first defenestration in Bo- 
hemian historj^ for the rebels had the Catholic counselors of the 
king thrown out of the window of the Hôtel de Ville at Prague. 
Seized with an attack of apoplexy, Wenzel died in August, 141 9, 
and Sigismund succeeded him on the Bohemian throne. The 
rebels, roused by John of Zeliv, took for their leaders Nicholas of 



PROKOP THE GREAT 151 

Pistna and the knight, John Zyska of Throcknow. They gath- 
ered about them a crowd of peasants who fortified themselves 
near Prague, on an eminence to which they gave the biblical name 
of Tabor. 

16. Sigismund and the Hussites. — John Zyska almost at 
once found himself master of Bohemia. Choosing Tabor for his 
headquarters, he assembled in a wagon-field men who were pre- 
pared to go to any lengths. Armed with maces of iron, and with 
flails bristling with nails, they submitted to a discipline so rigor- 
ous as to be accounted for only by profound religious emotion, 
and in spite of the intestine quarrels between the Calixtins and the 
Taborites, three crusades directed against them by Sigismund 
failed. Although he had become blind, Zyska displayed military 
talents which awoke feudal Europe to the power of tactics based 
upon infantry and artillery. He died of the plague, October nth, 
1424, just as he was on the point of invading Moravia. The 
Bohemians lost in him a well-nigh invincible chieftain, and a 
Tyrteus whose martial hymns aroused his soldiers to tremendous 
enthusiasm. 

17. Prokop the Great. End of the Hussite War (1436). 
— Sigismund had not given up Bohemia, but the exploits of the 
successor of Zj^ska, the priest, Prokop the Great, seemed to have 
delayed its restoration almost indefinitely. The Taborites be- 
gan by crossing the frontiers. Saxony, Franconia, Bavaria, 
Silesia, and Nuremberg received their terrible visitation, and a 
new crusade, organized by the legate Csesarini, was again de- 
feated. The sensible attitude of the Council of Basel, which pro- 
posed to grant concessions to the most moderate of the Hussites, 
then divided the Czechs. Prokop, after a failure before Pilsen, 
lost the confidence of part of his soldiers and a civil war then 
broke out between the Taborites and the Moderates, or the 
Utraquists. The Taborites were crushed, and Prokop was killed 
at the great battle of Boehmisch-brodo ( 1434) . Sigismund profited 
by that circumstance, accorded to the Utraquists some concessions, 
provisional it is true, and re-entered Prague (1436), from which 
the Luxemburg dynasty had been exiled for sixteen yearj. The 
emperor died the following year. As he died without leaving a 
son, he left Bohemia to his son-in-law, Albert of Austria, whom 
the electors chose as emperor. As to Brandenburg, Sigismund 



152 GERMANY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

gave it to Frederick of Hohenzollern in 141 5, as a reward for 
services rendered Sigismund at the time of his election. 

18. The Progress of the House of Hohenzollern. — When 
the last margrave of Brandenburg of the Ascanian house died vv^ith- 
out heirs, the emperor, Louis of Bavaria, gave the investiture of 
the margraviate to one of his sons. Charles IV got it in 1343 
from the Wittelsbach, half by force, half by good-will, and he 
gave it to his son Sigismund. Sigismund, in turn, transferred it 
to Frederick of Hohenzollern. 

By its position between Saxony and Holstein, countries essen- 
tially German, joining Mecklenburg and Pomerania, Slav until 
recently, with Poland and the countries of the Vistula, Slav 
as well, the margraviate of Brandenburg, taken itself from 
Slavic tribes, served as a bond of union between the Germanic 
territories and the countries of the East. Its situation offered 
to a warlike people a future field for conquests; but Sigismund, 
after taking from the Brandenburgers as much money as he 
could, intrusted the administration of the country to the bur- 
grave of Nuremberg, Frederick of Hohenzollern. 

In 141 7, Frederick received the electoral dignity attached to 
it in addition to the possession of the margraviate, and found 
himself, if not by the extent of his possessions, at least by his 
title, the equal of the Hapsburgs whose fortune his grandfather 
had helped to make. 

19. The Teutonic Order of Knights. — It seemed a mani- 
fest destiny, the reserving to Brandenburg of the Slavic land of 
Prussia, then occupied by the Teutonic Knights. They had been 
summoned at the opening of the XIII century by Poland, who 
was scarcely able to defend her vast domains, without natural 
frontiers, against the Borussia, whose tribes extended from 
Mecklenburg to Livonia. The Teutonic Knights joined together 
to form the Order of the Sword, and conquered Prussia, Livonia, 
and Courland. 

In the XIV century, an actual military and religious state was 
thus organized upon the eastern Baltic with Marienburg upon the 
lower Vistula as its capital. The possession of Danzig, which had 
been taken away from Poland, gave them the possession of the 
mouths of the great river, but there happened to them what had 
happened to the Templars. Their expeditions against the pagans 



FREDERICK III 153 

of Samogitia and of Lithuania had been profitable operations 
rather than crusades, and as a result the Grand Masters very soon 
became the heads of a commercial organization rather than the 
leaders of a religious order. Their agents in the maritime towns 
exploited the burghers to the limit of their endurance. At the 
same time, it was necessary for them, in order to defend them- 
selves against their covetous neighbors, to increase their military 
force at the expense of their moral tone. All the adventurers of 
Europe flocked to Prussia, and the Order soon found itself dis- 
credited. Danzig drove out the Teutonic garrison; and the 
Lithuanian converts defeated the Knights at Tannenberg in 14 10. 
Finally, at the end of the XV century, the treaty of Thorn in 
1466 placed them under the protection of Poland, but they re- 
tained Prussia, properly so-called, from the Nogat to the Niémen, 
with Koenigsberg as their chief stronghold. 

20. Albert II of Austria (1438-1439).— Thus, in the XV 
century, Germany, by means of the Teutonic Order, was ex- 
tending itself little by little to its present limits, but it was mak- 
ing no progress toward political unity. After the death of Sigis- 
mund, the house of Austria, under Duke Albert I, emperor under 
the name of Albert II, resumed the imperial crown which the 
Hapsburg house then retained, save for a brief interruption, until 
1806, although the central authority continued to be little re- 
garded. Albert succeeded Sigismund as king of Hungary and of 
Bohemia, though he had great difficulty in obtaining possession of 
Prague, in spite of the fact that the Bohemians had recognized 
that he was " good and merciful, although a German." But it 
was his misfortune to be the son-in-law and heir of the national 
enemy, Sigismund. Besides this he did not have time to become 
reconciled with his Czech subjects, since a swift sickness carried 
him off while he was marching along the Danube to repulse the 
invasion of the Turkish sultan, Murad II. 

21. Frederick III (1440-1493).— His posthumous son, 
Ladislaus, remained King of Bohemia and Duke of Austria until 
his death in 1457. After that time the duchy was demanded and 
definitely acquired, in 1463, by Frederick V, of the Styrian 
branch, who after 1452 was emperor under the name of Fred- 
erick III. How could the electors permit the Hapsburg family 
to make the imperial crown hereditary in their house? Frederick 



154 GERMANY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

was a poor prince, son, it is true, of an energetic man, Ernest of 
the Iron Tooth, but he displayed none of the brilliant qualities 
of a Sigismund, or of a Charles IV, and it is probable that the 
leaders of the great German families, occupied with rounding out 
their territories, considered the title of Emperor as perhaps an 
honor whose expenses were far greater than its benefits. 

No one at least submitted to so many reverses as Frederick III. 
He was compelled to recognize native kings elected in Bohemia 
and Hungary. He could not reconquer Switzerland, in spite of 
the victory of Saint- Jacques (1444), won by his ally the Dauphin 
Louis, and the Concordat of Aschaffenburg (1448) gave to the 
pope considerable financial rights upon the German churches. 
For this price Frederick, the last emperor to be crowned at Rome, 
exchanged his title of King of the Romans for that of Emperor, 
submitting to all the exigencies of a humiliating ceremonial, and 
even then not daring to cross the lands of certain Italian princes, 
whose ill-will he had reason to fear. 

22. Frederick III and Germany. — For a long time after his 
return he lived at Linz surrounded by savants and artists, troubling 
himself little about Germany. His principal care was to secure 
a great territorial fortune for his son Maximilian, and in pursuance 
of this aim, upon the death of Ladislaus of Bohemia, of whom 
he had been the guardian, he demanded the patrimonial estates 
of the house of Austria. These, as it has already been pointed out, 
he finally obtained, and they belonged to him definitely after the 
death of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, his indefatigable 
adversary. It is from this period on that the term the Archduchy 
of Austria is employed. 

He bought from his cousin, Sigismund, Tyrol and the posses- 
sion of Swabia and Alsace. In i486, Maximilian was elected 
King of the Romans, a circumstance which again assured the 
Empire to the Hapsburgs, but the title did not in any way in- 
crease his power, for the emperor and his son remained incapable 
of maintaining the public peace, and they were equally ineffectual 
in defending the Empire against the Turks. It was to remedy 
this weakness of the government and to provide for the general 
security that leagues of princes and towns were formed into 
associations for the public peace {Landfriede) . 

The prosperity of these towns continued to increase, and the 



HUNGARY FROM 1387 TO 1526 i55 

princes permitted the assemblies of the Three Estates to take a 
part greater and greater, and more and more fortunate for the 
government of their territories. The emperor knew well that he 
could not win any influence in Germany, except when he had con- 
siderable territorial power, but this continued to slip away from 
him. 

23. Ladislaus the Posthumous, King of Bohemia. George 
Podiebrad. — Frederick III did not succeed any better in retaining 
his hold upon Bohemia and Hungary after the death of Ladislaus, 
the posthumous son of Albert H. Ladislaus had just begun to reign 
in Bohemia under the guardianship of Frederick HI when a 
Utraquist priest and a young noble, George Podiebrad, who had 
become one of the chief leaders of the Hussite Moderates, gained 
control of the government. Podiebrad's rule, in the name of 
Ladislaus, gave to Bohemia several years of such prosperity that 
upon the death of Ladislaus he was able to have himself elected 
king of Bohemia. The Emperor Frederick HI, although he was 
himself the heir to the throne, nevertheless consented to grant to 
Podiebrad the investiture ot it. It is true that he provoked up- 
risings against the new king of Bohemia, but Podiebrad with a 
well-organized army put down the rebellion and defeated Matthias 
Corvinus, the king of Hungary, whom the pope had armed against 
him. Before Podiebrad died he had designated a Slav, Ladislaus 
Jagellon, son of the king of Poland, to succeed him as king of 
Bohemia. He was made king of Hungary, also, in 1490, and later 
transmitted Bohemia to his son Louis, who became king of Hun- 
gary as well, and was killed by the Turks at the battle of Mohacs 
in 1526. From 1490 to 1526 Bohemia and Hungary were thus 
united under one rule, and in 1526 they were both definitely 
joined with the house of Austria. 

24. Hungary from 1387 to 1526. — After the extinction of the 
ruling house of Anjou, in 1387, the emperor Sigismund of Luxem- 
burg ruled in Hungary, and his house continued to govern until 
1437, when Albert II of Austria inherited the crown. The crown 
of Hungary, like that of Bohemia, legally passed from him to 
his minor son Ladislaus, the Posthumous, but he was too young 
to rule and the Hungarians, who were then seriously threatened 
by the Turks, chose as king another Ladislaus, who was at the 
time king of Poland. This Ladislaus ruled with the help of John 



156 GERMANY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

Corvinus HunyadI and was killed fighting against the Turks at 
the battle of Varna irt 1444. 

Upon his death Hunyadi was chosen regent and the posthumous 
son of Albert, Ladislaus, was then elected king of Hungary. John 
Hunyadi was a faithful guardian of the interests of the throne, 
not only in ruling but in fighting, his most celebrated exploit 
being the successful defense of Belgrade against the Turks under 
Mohammed II in 1456. He died the same year, and Ladislaus in 
the year following. The Diet of Pesth then elected as king the 
second son of John Hunyadi, Matthias, in 1458, and he ruled 
until 1490. That election deprived Frederick HI of Hungary as 
he had already been deprived of Bohemia. 

The crowns of Hungary and of Bohemia were already united 
under King Louis (II) Jagellon when he was killed at Mohacs in 
1526. Upon the overthrow of the Hungarians in this great battle 
a large part of Hungary passed to the Turks and Louis' brother- 
in-law, Ferdinand of Hapsburg, later emperor, became king of 
the remainder. Thus Hungary like Bohemia was definitely joined 
with Austria. 

25. Maximilian I (1493-1519).— When the Emperor Fred- 
erick III died in 1493, the house of Austria dominated Europe 
by the extent of its possessions, and by its expectations. Maxi- 
milian was King of the Romans, and as a result did not have to 
fear any serious competition for the Empire. He was the real 
founder of the greatness of the Austrian house, the way for which 
had been prepared by Frederick III. Maximilian united the 
domains of the Hapsburgs, Austria, Styria, and Swabia; and as 
the guardian of his son, the archduke Philip, born of his marriage 
with Mary of Burgundy, he governed the Low Countries, Artois, 
and Franche-Comté, destined soon to find place among the other 
Austrian estates. By marrying his son the archduke Philip to the 
daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, Maxi- 
milian made possible the union of the Spanish estates and the 
Empire; and by the marriage of his grandson Ferdinand to the 
sister of Louis (II) Jagellon of Hungary and of Bohemia, he 
prepared the way for the return of these two kingdoms to Austria. 

Maximilian I, " Max of the long legs," " Max without 
money," is one of the most original characters of the end of the 
XV century. Never has a prince been more admired, and at the 



THE REORGANIZATION OF GERMANY 157 

same time been more made sport of than he. His well-formed 
figure, the beauty of his face, enhanced by long yellow hair, his 
agility and his energy in all bodily exercises in the chase, in war, 
and in the tournament, his affability, his liberality, his natural 
eloquence, his prodigous intellectual activity, joined with an edu- 
cation greatly varied and very solid, all united in arousing an 
admiration for him at the first awakening of the Renaissance. 
*' He inspired more confidence," says a Florentine, " than any of 
his predecessors had done for a hundred years." 

26. Maximilian's Ideas. — The results of his reign, on the 
surface at least, do not warrant this confidence. Many historians 
have ridiculed this starveling sovereign, always short of money, 
rushing from the south to the north, and from the east to the 
west, beaten by the Venetians, imprisoned by the Flemish, a joke 
among the electors, never able to win back except by chicanery and 
fortunate marriages ,vhat he had lost by his defeats. This is the 
caricature. Maximilian sufïered great reverses which were caused 
by nis too great confidence in his destiny and in men, by the 
multiplicity and the rashness of his enterprises, by the egotism of 
the princes and the towns, and by the opposition of the interests 
of Austria and of the Empire, but he accomplished a considerable 
task. He perfected the military art, increased the efficiency of 
the artillery, organized the German infantry of the lanzknechts, 
laid the foundations of a new administrative organization in Ger- 
many, and created the institutions of the Empire which were 
destined to have a long future. 

27. The Reorganization of Germany. — The external his- 
tory of the reign of Maximilian is closely woven with that of 
France, Italy, the Low Countries, and Spain. In Germany his 
reign was filled with successive attempts at constitutional re- 
organization. These he pursued at various Diets during his reign, 
and in these assemblies his plans for centralization were always in 
opposition to the instincts of independence of the princes. The 
archbishop of Mayence was for ten years at the head of the re- 
form party, which wished to assure a regular participation of the 
Diet and the princes in the government of the Empire and which 
appeared to triumph at Augsburg in 1500, but his death enabled 
Maximilian to resume the advantage. He refused to create a 
council of the Empire and a captain of the Empire nominated by 



158 GERMANY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

the Diet, It was agreed to proclaim a general peace, however, 
to organize a Supreme Court of the Empire, which was to rep- 
resent the idea of unity, and to impose a matricula, or schedule of 
assessment, for the maintenance of the army, which was to be 
provided by the electors, the prelates, the princes, and the towns. 
This matricula perpetuated the independence of their territories. 

Germany was divided into ten administrative circles, each hav- 
ing its local assembly and a captain responsible for the maintenance 
of peace. 

In Maximilian's plan of government may be seen the origin of 
that singular constitution of Germany in the XVII and XVIII 
centuries, in which a federation of princely sovereign States, each 
maintaining its own political integrity, is joined with the absolute 
monarchy of Austria which held the imperial crown, and which 
exerted its authority more by its alliances with the princes than by 
means of the empty form of the Diets. 

Maximilian died January nth, 15 19, deeply troubled in spite 
of the hopes which he had based upon his grandson, Charles of 
Spain. 

28. Germany in 1519. — Yet at that moment Germany, having 
enjoyed a period of comparative peace for thirty years, was ready 
for a great movement of ideas and science. It had seen the 
invention of printing, and since that time had awakened to an 
intellectual life whose activity had grown with a marvelous 
rapidity. In spite of the decadence of the Hanseatic League, its 
material prosperity continued, and had no rival except in the 
Low Countries. Nuremberg was a commercial center almost as 
important as Augsburg. Cologne, Strasburg, and Worms were 
likewise cities of wealth and comfortable dwellings; but the Ger- 
man peasants suffered a great deal between the industrial and 
rapacious burghers, the showy and tyrannical princes, and the 
greedy and poor small nobility. In certain parts of Germany, 
particularly in Swabia, the condition of the country people was 
intolerable. Thus the great religious quarrels of the XVI century, 
and the insatiable ambition of the German princes was bound 
very soon to set in motion all those elements of discord which, for 
many a long day, were to carry Germany far from peace and 
unity. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE GREAT SCHISM, AND THE COUNCILS OF 
CONSTANCE AND BASEL (1378-1450) 

1. The Church in the XIV and XV Centuries.— The re- 
moval of the Papacy from Rome at the opening of the XIV 
century led to its long sojourn at Avignon and to the consequent 
substitution of the policy of the rulers of France for the in- 
dependent action of the spiritual rulers of Christendom. This, 
taken together with clerical preoccupation in temporal affairs, the 
questionable life of some of the prelates, and the traffic in sacred 
things brought about by the financial straits of the Papacy, all 
combined to set the current of European thought strongly against 
the authority of the pope. The Mystics renounced the means of 
salvation offered by the Roman Church in order to communicate 
more directly with God, while the reformers either advanced to 
heresy or attempted through the authority of Church Councils 
to bring about a return to primitive apostolic purity and simplicity, 
and to end the schism which had been the result of a simultaneous 
election in 1378 of an Italian pope. Urban VI, and a French pope, 
Clement VII. In the Church Councils the Church Fathers pur- 
sued without success three aims : ( i ) the re-establishment of 
Catholic unity; (2) the repression of dogmatic heresy; and, (3) 
a series of reforms which aimed at placing control by an CEcumeni- 
cal Council upon an equality with the power of the sovereign 
pontiff. It was the failure of this attempt in the XV century that 
became one of the most deep-seated causes of the Protestant 
Reformation in the XVI century. 

2. The Schism. — Upon the death of Gregory XI there was 
raised to office the French anti-pope, Clement VII, in opposition 
to the Roman pope, Urban VI. Europe then found itself divided 
between them. The French party would not yield, and after the 
death of Clement VII, against the Roman pope, Boniface IX, 

159 



i6o THE GREAT SCHISM 

supported Benedict XHI, who maintained his pretensions until 
his death in 1424. He lived to witness the election and death of 
the next Roman pope, however, who was Innocent VIL The 
Roman Gregory XII, who was deposed by the Council of Pisa 
(1409) at the same time as the French Benedict XIII wished to 
retain the tiara, although the Council had nominated a third 
pope, Alexander V. The successor of Alexander, John XXIII, 
with the aid of the emperor, Sigismund, then set about to assemble 
a council at Constance which should settle the questions of the 
Schism, Church reform, and the heresy of John Hus ( 1414). 

3. The Decadence of the Church. — " The seamless gar- 
ment," that is, the Church, according to the Mystic expression of 
the times, had already been rent, and as a matter of fact, after 
the fruitless attempts at conciliation by the Council of Pisa in 
1409, the different Christian nations felt that they could choose 
from the three popes that one who most .favored their particular 
interests. They even believed that by withholding obedience they 
could refuse temporarily to recognize any pontiff. This was 
really to create national Churches. In 14 10, France, England, the 
emperor, Poland, Hungary, Portugal, and a part of Italy held 
out for John XXIII ; Treves, Cologne, Mayence, Italy, and 
Bavaria recognized Gregory XII; and Benedict XIII had the 
support of Spain, Scotland, and a part of the south of France. In 
the midst of these troubles, the abuse of ecclesiastical justice, the 
traffic in holy things, the extension of the financial rights of the 
Holy See, the annates, reservations, provisors, induits, indulgences, 
and Peter's pence, which pontifical avarice had increased, and 
finally, the decay of ecclesiastical morals, provoked the triple op- 
position of the mystics, the heresiarchs, and the doctors. 

4. Mysticism. — The XIV century was the golden age of 
mysticism. When confidence in the Holy See had disappeared, 
exalted souls addressed themselves directly to God, and formed 
voluntary associations for the development of Christian life, in- 
dependent of ecclesiastical control. Such were the Friends of 
God and the Brethren of the Common Life in Germany, Alsace, 
Switzerland, and the Low Countries. Thomas à Kempis, who died 
in 1 47 1, sought God "in a little cell with a little book." To 
him has been improperly attributed the admirable Imitation of 
Jesus Christ, the great work of mystic literature which was writ- 



JOHN WYCLIF i6i 

ten in the midst of the monastic surroundings in which he lived. 
The Mystics, however, were not long content simply to preach 
the gospel in their own fashion. Mysticism, as almost always 
happens, soon advanced to heresy or madness, and the flagellants 
overran Europe, replacing every kind of worship by flagellation. 
The extent of, this malady is indicated by the rapid spread of the 
great epidemic of the " dance of Saint Vitus," and in the numbers 
of the Adamites and the Turlupins, who rejected all moral law, the 
family, and society. More rationally some of the elect, who were 
penetrated with the spirit of mysticism, like Saint Catherine of 
Siena (1380), Saint Bridget of Sweden (1393), and Saint 
Vincent Ferrier of Spain (1410), labored with great zeal to re- 
establish the unity of the Church and offered to responsive souls a 
poetical and emotional worship in the adoration of the Holy Virgin. 
The spiritual Franciscans, carried further by their democratic and 
religious audacity, went so far even as to attack the Papacy. 

5. John Wyclif (1324-1384).— Mysticism did not threaten 
the Church with any serious danger, however, for while it pre- 
pared the ground for the reformers, it was unable to do anything 
in the way of organization. The opposition of the universities to 
the Church, on the other hand, presented a graver menace. In 
England Wyclif, and in Bohemia John Hus, drifted rapidly from 
protest against the abuses of Catholicism into a denial of some of 
its fundamental dogmas. 

Having pursued at Oxford the theological studies which earned 
for him the title of the " Evangelical Doctor," the English priest, 
John Wyclif, became inspired by the rigid doctrine of Saint 
Augustine, which seemed to deny the freedom of the human will. 
He was the avowed enemy of the worldly prelates whom Italy 
had sent to England, and was indignant at the shameless mendi- 
cancy of the monks. It was in this mood that he attacked the 
authority of the pope in his book De Dominio Divino. Condemned 
by Gregory XI, he addressed himself to the people through 
pamphlets written in English, whose familiar and energetic style 
made a deep impression. He denied transubstantiation, attacked 
indulgences, auricular confession, and the worship of the saints. 
His followers, the Lollards, or " babblers," rapidly spread his 
doctrines abroad. Wyclif was driven from his chair at Oxford, 
but was followed with great enthusiasm to his retreat at Lutter- 



i62 THE GREAT SCHISM 

worth by popular interest. About 1382, with the aid of Nicholas 
Hereford, he made probably the first complete translation of the 
Latin Vulgate Bible into English. He died in 1384 while hearing 
mass, and was buried in the churchyard at Lutterworth, but in 
1428 the bishop of Lincoln had his bones dug up and burned and 
his ashes thrown into the river Swift. These ashes became the 
symbol of the widespread effect of his doctrines, for, according 
to a popular figure, the Swift carried them to the Avon, the Avon 
to the Severn, and the Severn to the sea. 

Certainly before his death he had indicated in a definite man- 
mer the points upon which were based the efforts of all the re- 
formers who followed him. 

6. John Hus (1369-1415). — The same causes, several years 
later, were responsible for the rise of the Hussites in Bohemia. 
The Bohemian clergy, rich and worldly, while supporting them- 
selves upon their great German estates, were the oppressors of 
their Slavic peasants ; but the creation of the University of Prague, 
in 1348 brought to the Czech nationality, with the culture of its 
native language, the consciousness of its rights. John Hus, born at 
Husinetch in 1369, was learned in law, medicine, theology, and 
ancient literature, and as a professor in the University wrote and 
preached in the Czech tongue. Although he knew the books of 
Wyclif which his disciple, Jerome of Prague, had brought to 
him, he attacked chiefly the sale of indulgences, and, although in 
the book which led to his excommunication, the Tractatus de 
Ecclesia (1412), he based the Christian religion exclusively upon 
the Scriptures, and refused to recognize any distinction between the 
priests and the laity, he did not deny in any positive manner the 
authority of the pope. Nevertheless, he very evidently was at- 
tempting to establish a church exclusively national for Bohemia, 
a circumstance which is enough to explain his summons to appear 
before the Council of Constance (1414). 

7. The French Theologians. — The theologians of Paris were 
prepared to oppose him because the division with which he threat- 
ened Christendom delayed the reform of morals and discipline 
upon which they had set their hearts. Yet they, too, had been dis- 
posed to subordinate the authority of the pope to that of the 
Council. In the mind of Pierre d'Ailly, the Church itself might 
exist perfectly outside the Roman Church. Gerson, " the most 



THE QUESTION OF THE SCHISM 163 

Christian Doctor," in his attitude, certainly placed the University 
above the Papacy; but they feared above all else to disturb the 
Catholic unity, and earnestly desired moderate and prudent re- 
forms which they judged to be alone possible and lasting. 

8. The Council of Constance (1414-1418).— The Schism, 
the necessity for reforms in the Church, and the heresy of John 
Hus, relegated to the second place in the mind of Europe ail other 
questions which were then attracting attention, even the Hundred 
Years' War. The emperor Sigismund as well, in convoking an 
CEcumenical Council at Constance in the month of November, 
1 4 14, sought to settle definitely all the religious quarrels which 
were threatening at that time to sunder Catholic Europe forever. 
Imposing in his person, polished and courteous, as a true Luxem- 
burger, he loved tournaments and fêtes extravagantly, and be- 
lieved that he could resolve the most serious difficulties by a 
brilliant display and material demonstrations. There responded 
to his invitation a great number of cardinals, prelates, abbots, 
doctors, and priests. The pope, John XXIII, made a formal 
entry, somewhat against his will, " into this pit where they trap 
foxes." Many of the princes rallied around the emperor. Henry 
V of England, Charles VI of France, and John of Burgundy had 
sent ambassadors. There were present also some Greeks and 
Tartars. France was represented principally by Gerson, the 
spokesman of the University of Paris, by Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly, 
and by Doctor Nicholas de Clamanges. The French desired in 
the first place the reform of morals and of church discipline, while 
they continued to respect the Catholic dogma. The Germans and 
the English showed themselves more zealous against the Holy See, 
and their violence gave earnest of revolutions to come. 

9. The Question of the Schism. — First of all, which of 
the three popes, John, Gregory, or Benedict, was to be sacrificed? 
The only one of them who had accepted the Council, John 
XXIII, depended upon his own ability and his knowledge of law 
as v/ell as upon the support of some of the German princes, such 
as Duke Frederick of Austria. Gregory XII, withdrawn to 
Rimini, personally less compromised, had to his discredit the viola- 
tion of his oath, inasmuch as he had refused, in spite of his promise, 
to submit to the decision of the Council of Pisa which had de- 
posed him in 1409. Benedict XIII, an obstinate old man, but 



i64 COUNCILS OF CONSTANCE AND BASEL 

not lacking in virtue, from the rocky heights of Peniscola in 
Catalonia, in spite of the personal intervention of Sigismund, and 
in spite of his abandonment by the Spaniards in 141 7, persisted 
down to the time of his death (1423) in anathematizing the 
fathers of the Council who deposed him also. 

Pierre d'Ailly had succeeded in procuring in 14 15 the recogni- 
tion of the principle that the Council had the right to depose 
popes. In spite of John XXIII he had secured to simple priests and 
doctors the same right to vote as belonged to prelates and abbots. 
The reformers in this way had held the majority in the four 
voices, or nations: "German, French, English, and Italian." 

10. The Deposition of the Three Popes. — On March ist, 
1415, John XXIII pretended to yield: he resigned the sovereign 
pontificate upon the condition that his two competitors should 
likewise abdicate; then under the cover of a tournament he es- 
caped, disguised as a groom. Suspended and deposed in accord- 
ance with a regular act of accusation brought against him, he 
was seized and shut up for some time at Gotleben, in the same 
prison as John Hus. 

Gregory XII abdicated in his turn and Benedict XIII was 
considered only as an anti-pope after 1409. The fathers of the 
Council — and this point was urged by the Germans — had at that 
moment within their grasp the power of reforming the Church 
before giving it a new chief; but the French doctors wished to 
hurry on the election in order to assure Catholic unity against 
any possible revolution. They contented themselves at that time 
with drawing up under eighteen headings a list of the demands 
insisted upon by the reformers : a compulsory decennial convocation 
of Councils; a diminution of the financial rights of the Holy See; 
a suppression of the sale of indulgences; a restriction of the juris- 
diction of the Papacy, and a reduction in the number of the 
cardinals. The fifth session affirmed also the superiority of the 
Council over the pope, but, due to the fact that when the vote 
was taken, there was no pope, the Holy See was able, quite 
logically, to sustain its point that the vote was not canonically 
perfect, and therefore not binding upon the Church. The Con- 
clave then elected (November nth, 141 7) Otto Colonna under 
the name of Martin V. Naturally the new pope immediately 
evaded the obligations which the Council had attempted to im- 



FAILURE OF THE COUNCIL 165 

pose upon him, and succeeded in withdrawing from its con- 
trol. 

IL The Condemnation of John Hus. — Besides this the 
pope attached great weight to the fear which heresy inspired 
even in the doctors who were the most ardent supporters of re- 
form, and the Council was bent upon making an end of the 
Hussite doctrines. John Hus, summoned to Constance, had not 
received the safe-conduct of the emperor Sigismund until after 
his arrival (November 5th). Nevertheless, a few days later 
John XXIII had the Bohemian reformer arrested. The majority 
of the Council, even the French envoys, gave their approval to 
this proceeding, and Sigismund, who was counting upon obtaining 
from the Council a declaration in favor of his pretensions to 
universal monarchy, protested only in a formal way against the 
perfidy for which he became responsible. Pierre d'Ailly and Ger- 
son were implacable against John Hus, not only because of his 
dogmatic heresies, but because they discovered in his doctrines 
the philosophical errors of the realists; for the University of Paris 
was passionately devoted to the nominalist philosophy. Scholastic 
hatred was thus added, unfortunately for the Czech doctor, to 
the demands of orthodoxy. He refused to recognize the authority 
of the Holy See and of the Fathers, nor would he admit in the 
matter of dogma any other guide than that of the Scriptures. 
He was condemned to the stake and died a martyr's death ( 1415). 
His disciple, Jerome of Prague, was burned in the following year. 
The Hussites declared themselves separated from the Roman 
Church, and they continued to partake of the communion in two 
kinds. It took twenty years of warfare to compel these Utraquists, 
or Calixtins, to submit. 

12. Failure of the Council of Constance. — While the con- 
demnation of Hus was indeed a triumph for the Papacy, the 
Fathers of the Council considered it only as a preliminary to 
further reforms. Three commissions, of which Pierre d'Ailly 
and Gerson were the ruling spirits, with the German doctors at- 
tempted to draw up in a definite manner a constitution which 
should contain the stipulations which had preceded the election 
of Martin V; but the pope continued to make evasions. Upon 
his authority he issued seven decrees which left intact all the 
rights of the curicj save only that he urged upon ecclesiastics the 



1 66 COUNCILS OF CONSTANCE AND BASEL 

necessity for good morals. Finally, having obtained from the 
vacillation of Sigismund the dissolution of the Council (April, 
1417), he published in 14 18 a manifesto written secretly upon the 
day following his election. In it he condemned Hus, but he 
denounced as well the doctrine of the supremacy of the Council 
over the popes. He even made haste to sign separately with the 
various Powers five concordats which divided the material ad- 
vantages derived from ecclesiastical benefices between the pope 
and the princes. This régime of concordats favored reforms very 
little and was opposed to the formation of national churches, 
which had attempted upon several occasions to assume an inde- 
pendent existence by acts called " pragmatic sanctions." 

13. The Council of Basel. — Martin V made liberal use of 
his victory, and little by little recovered all the privileges of the 
Holy See. The failure of a new Council which attempted to 
assemble at Paris and at Siena was due to him; but at the mo- 
ment of his death he was forced by Catholic opinion, disappointed 
in its hope of reforms, to announce for the year 143 1 the assembly 
of an Œcumenical Council at Basel. His successor was a Vene- 
tian noted for his polish and adroitness, Eugene IV. Eugene IV 
viewed with displeasure the Council of Basel. He had chosen 
for its president the Bohemian legate, Cardinal Cesarini, in whose 
eyes the Hussite question was far more important than any ques- 
tion of reform. The legate allowed the sitting to be opened in 
his absence. He knew that the moral weight of that body was 
considerably less than that of the Fathers of Constance, and that 
the number of those sitting was far less. Neither the German, 
Nicolas of Cusa, nor the Italian, lEneas Silvius Piccolomini, in 
spite of their talents, could be compared with either Gerson or 
Pierre d'Ailly. They were very soon induced, either by ambition, 
conviction, or inconstancy, to abandon the cause of reform, which 
had no other consistent defender than the pious bishop of Aries, 
Louis d'Aleman. 

14. Deliberations of the Council of Basel. — Two pre- 
liminary questions were introduced into the Council: the regula- 
tion of the affairs of Bohemia; and the union with the Greeks, 
which Eugene IV had brought to the front in a very able man- 
ner. That regulated, it was necessary to come to a decision upon 
the questions of the superiority of the Councils and general re- 



THE NEW SCHISM 167 

form. Four deputations divided among themselves the study of 
these different questions which should receive their final solution 
in the general sittings; but the sittings were filled with tumult 
and with disorder. From the beginning these scandals were so 
frequent that, contrary to the prudent council of Cesarini, the pope 
believed that he was strong enough to dissolve the Council. Sigis- 
mund had merely demanded of the Council that it should come 
to a conclusion upon the affairs of Bohemia; he did not do more 
than make his appearance at Basel, and was indifferent to reform. 
Under these conditions the pope had every means for triumphing 
over the spirit of opposition which the lower clergy, who formed 
the majority, displayed against the Holy See. 

15. The Failure of the Council of Basel. — In spite of the 
pope, the Council from the first had allowed the Hussites to 
appear at Basel to defend themselves, and the Utraquists, who 
formed the moderate party of the Hussites, as opposed to the 
insurgents, the Taborites, were now able to obtain, by the Compact 
of Prague, the following concessions: both elements of the com- 
munion; free preaching; and the suppression of ecclesiastical juris- 
diction. This moderation of the Council enabled Sigism.und to 
obtain the submission of Bohemia in 1436; but Eugene IV was 
very much annoyed at the initiative taken by the Fathers, and 
while they were discussing the endless question of financial and 
judicial reform of the Church the pope raised the question of the 
union of Catholicism with the orthodox Greek Church which 
had been prepared a long time before by the great Cardinal Bes- 
sarion. Upon the pretext that it was farther away from Greece, 
Eugene IV (1437) prorogued the Council to Ferrara, then to 
Florence; but the Fathers at Basel, supported by France and by 
Germany, persisted in holding their seats. Charles VII, of 
France, irritated by these proceedings of the pope, promulgated, 
through the French prelates, the " Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges " 
(1438), and the successor of Sigismund, Albert of Austria, the 
" Pragmatic Sanction of Mayence " (1439). 

16. The New Schism and the Council of Florence. — 
The Council which Eugene IV ridiculed under the name of 
" conventicle " deposed the pope and replaced him by Amadeus of 
Savoy, Felix V. The choice was at least curious. If some have 
criticised the morals of the small court which he held in his castle 



i68 COUNCILS OF CONSTANCE AND BASEL 

of Ripaille on Lake Geneva, he was, to say the least, a badly 
balanced head. He could obtain the recognition of only a very 
small fraction of Christendom, and his election really appears to 
have been an abuse of power on the part of the Basel Council. 
During this time, at Florence, Eugene IV held the first real 
Œcumenical Council since that of 869 at Constantinople, inas- 
much as he gathered there the representatives of the Eastern 
Church and of the Roman Catholic. The illustrious Bessarion, 
by force of his activity and his prudence, appears to have been 
able to smooth away the theological difficulties which had separated 
the two confessions, and the pope was able to proclaim in the 
cathedral of Florence (July, 1439) the decree which reconciled 
Rome and Constantinople. 

17. The End of the Council of Basel. — The ungracious dis- 
position of the Greeks, who rejected the decree, rendered void, it is 
true, this generous attempt, but it sufficed, nevertheless, to in- 
crease the prestige of the pope at Rome who was endeavoring to 
bring about a union of all Christendom while the Fathers and 
the schismatic pope of Basel were laboring to bring about a separa- 
tion. A new assemblage took place in the Lateran Palace at 
Rome, and here the popularity of Eugene reached its climax. The 
emperor, Frederick III, and one of the principal churchmen at 
Basel, JEne^s Silvius, afterwards Pope Pius II, declared them- 
selves in his favor, and he had even drawn up a concordat with 
Germany when he died. Frederick III, who wished to be crowned 
emperor at Rome, recognized the supremacy of the Holy See in the 
Concordat of Vienna, which abandoned the reforms resolved upon 
by the Council of Basel. 

The plague now drove the last supporters of the anti-pope, 
Felix V, from Basel to Lausanne. Upon the advice of Charles 
VII of France he made his submission in 1449, was made a car- 
dinal, and the Schism was healed forever. The Reformation 
councils did not leave behin'd them any fundamental reforms. 
Nevertheless, in France, in England, and in Germany, the national 
churches took form, while beyond doubt Lutheranism and Angli- 
canism owe many things to the councils of Constance and Basel. 



CHAPTER XII 
ITALY IN THE XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

1. Italy in the XIV Century. — In its closing struggle with 
the Empire, the Papacy, as a final resort, had called in Charles 
of Anjou, brother of Saint Louis, to depose Manfred, the last 
Hohenstaufen, and to assume the crown of the Two Sicilies. 
Charles came, the pope excommunicated Manfred and helped to 
provide Charles with the army that defeated and killed Manfred 
at Benevento. Two years later Manfred's nephew, Conradin, 
was beaten at Tagliacozzo (1268), and with Frederick, his cousin, 
was executed at Naples. In this extermination of the Hohen- 
staufen line the triumph of the Papacy seemed to be complete. 
Yet the next generation saw the pope tumbled from the summit 
of his power by the agents of Philip the Fair, and the Papacy 
itself, after the death of Boniface VIII, transferred to France, 
where it remained controlled by the French crown from 1305 
to 1378. 

Italy, though emerging from the struggles between the Empire 
and the Papacy, remained a distracted land during the XIV and 
XV centuries, and her history continues to be one of turmoil and 
confusion. The city republics, after numerous internal revolu- 
tions, were forced in the end to accept the despotic government of 
many tyrants and princes. Florence with the Medici developed a 
government halfway between a principality and a democracy, 
while Venice and Genoa remained republican in form, but the one 
was in the hands of an oligarchy, the other a prey to perpetual 
revolutions. The rulership of the Two Sicilies to the south of the 
peninsula was not determined until the middle of the XV century, 
when it finally fell under the sway of the princes of the house of 
Aragon. The Papacy, in part due to its long captivity at Avignon, 
although it had returned to the Peninsula, had little by little lost 
much of its religious influence over Europe. Under the impulse 

169 



I70 ITALY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

given to it by the political popes of the XV century, the Papacy 
sought mainly to increase its temporal possessions, although in 
its struggle against the French, the Germans, and the Spaniards for 
the unity of Italy, certain popes had at least tried to serve a more 
patriotic cause. 

2. Guelf and Ghibelline. — The civil wars in the city re- 
publics were in the main due to the bitter rivalry of the two great 
factions, Guelf and Ghibelline. At first they had represented, the 
one, the interests of the Papacy and the new industrial civilization 
of the cities; the other, the claims of the German emperors in 
Italy and those great landed interests which were opposed to 
both the popes and the democracy; but these designations lost their 
original significance and came to represent fundamentally differ- 
ent interests and divergent ideas of the functions of the state. As 
Symonds says: "The Guelf party meant to the burghers of the 
Consular Communes, the men of industry and commerce, the 
upholders of civil liberty, the friends of democratic expansion. 
The Ghibelline party included the naturalized {German) nobles, 
the men of arms and idleness, the advocates of feudalism, the 
politicians who regarded constitutional progress with disfavor. 
That the banner of the Church floated over the one camp, while 
the standard of the Empire rallied to itself the hostile party, 
was a matter of comparatively superficial moment. . . . The 
Ghibelline heard Italy calling on him to build a citadel that 
should be guarded by the lance and shield of chivalry, where 
the hierarchies of feudalism ranged beneath the dais of the 
Empire might dispense culture and civil order in due measure to 
the people. The Guelf believed that she was bidding him to 
multiply arts and guilds within the burgh beneath the mantle 
of the Pope, who stood for Christ, the preacher of equality and 
peace for all mankind." 

Society was thus rent to its foundations, and so sharp were the 
social divisions that the hatreds dating from the XIII century 
were continued in the most trivial details of daily life. Yet this 
was not interminable confusion and discord. The struggle had to 
have a discernible outcome, and this final issue of the conflict was 
" a new Italy deeply divided by factions that were little under- 
stood because they were so vital, because they represented two 
adverse currents of natural energ}^ incompatible, irreconcilable, 



THE ITALIAN CITIES 171 

eternal in antagonism as the poles. But this discordant nation 
was more commercial and democratic." Essentially it is upon 
these economic and democratic conditions that the history of Italy 
and of the Italian cities rests. 

3. The Italian Cities. — During the internal wars of the XII 
and XIII centuries, the cities were made independent of outside 
control and took on the form of republics {communes) . Their 
massive town walls continued to serve for defense against out- 
side attack, but they became at the same time the concrete evi- 
dence of the community which they inclosed. There were two 
main centers of interest in the cities, the cathedral, with its 
baptistry and its bell-tower (campanile), and the public square 
(piazza) upon which the town-hall (palazzo pubblico) stood. 
Crowding close upon these were shops, houses, palaces, and grim 
fortresses, whose architecture gave evidence of the frequency with 
which street fighting took place. In externals they were all much 
alike, but each city maintained the individuality which had been 
stamped upon its people by their descent, history, occupations, soil, 
and location. 

While it is true that the cathedral and public square expressed 
their vital dependence upon the Church and the government, the 
essential prosperity and power of these cities depended upon their 
ability to protect and to find outlets for the products of their 
workshops in the way of trade and commerce. It was, there- 
fore, of the utmost significance that the arti, or guilds, should 
assume at this time positions of power and control in the affairs 
of the city, and this fact is the most momentous single social 
phenomenon of the period. The divisions of society were in the 
main three. The nobility, the clergy, and the rich bankers and 
merchants were in one class; in another were the small tradesmen 
and the master workmen; and what was left of the population 
was in the third. The control exercised by the one or the other 
of these interests in the city determined whether the government 
should be a despotism, an aristocracy, an oligarchy, or a democracy, 
Guelf or Ghibelline. 

Florence, due to the control exercised by the guilds, more 
nearly approached a democracy. Here there were seven greater 
guilds, " judges and notaries, wool merchants, refiners and dyers 
of foreign wool, silk dealers, money changers, physicians, and 



172 ITALY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

apothecaries, and furriers, and fourteen lesser guilds containing 
butchers, shoemakers, masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, and so on." 

Many of these merchant guilds carried on an extensive busi- 
ness. Sedgwick takes the example of Florentine trade to illustrate 
the character of this commerce. " Tuscany," he says, '' yielded a 
poor quality of wool, and as it was impossible to weave good cloth 
from poor wool, these Florentine merchants imported raw wool 
from Tunis, Barbary, Spain, Flanders, and England, wove it into 
cloth so deftly that foreigners could not compete with them, and 
exported it to the principal markets of Europe. Trade with 
the North, however, was less important than trade with the 
East. Merchandise was carried over the seas more easily than 
over the Alps, and in many respects the products of the East were 
better and more varied than those of northern Europe. The 
Italians loaded the galleys of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, with silken 
and woolen stuffs, oil, wine, pitch, tar, and common metals, and 
brought back from Alexandria, Constantinople, and the ports of 
Asia Minor and Syria, pearls, gold, spices, sugar, Eastern silk, 
wool, cotton, goat skins, and dyes, and sometimes Eastern slaves." 
This varied commerce made necessary some better system than that 
either of barter or of ready money. To meet this need, there was 
created a system of banking, necessitating credit and bills of ex- 
change. The Florentines were par excellence bankers and had 
established branches of their great banking houses everywhere. 

Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the importance of trade 
and commerce in the development of the peculiar history of 
Italian cities, for its development was a triumph over many 
obstacles. Around Florence, for example, for twenty miles were 
scattered the castles of feudal noblemen who made a trade of 
exacting from the merchants their goods as they emerged from 
the city. Rival cities refused transit to Florentine wares with- 
out exorbitant tolls, and it was in order to obtain this essential 
control of the highways to the sea or over the mountains that 
Florence had recourse to war and to the ultimate capture of the 
weaker towns around her. 

The history of these wars for conquest without, and of the 
factional fights within, is the common history of all the cities of 
Italy. Milan, like Florence, made war on her neighbors for 
conquest. Venice fought Ravenna, Verona attacked Padua, Mo- 



ROME WITHOUT THE POPES 173 

dena Bologna, Genoa made war on Pisa, Pisa on Lucca, and Flor- 
ence upon both. From these general political and economic condi- 
tions, as Symonds says, " the several classes of society, triturated, 
shaken together, leveled by warfare, and equaled by industry, pre- 
sented but few obstacles to the emergence of commanding person- 
alities, however humble, from their ranks," and the families of 
the Italian despots succeed, one by one, in dominating the cities. 

4. Rome without the Popes. — In 1296 Boniface had writ- 
ten to Philip the Fair of France: " Listen, my son, to the words 
of a tender father. Beware of the belief that thou hast no su- 
perior, and that thou art not subject to the chief of the hierarchy." 
At the time of the Papal Jubilee in 1300, the Papacy appeared 
to be all-powerful under Boniface VIII. Four years later, how- 
ever, Boniface returned to Rome, from which the Colonna faction, 
the allies of Philip the Fair, had driven him, and died there broken- 
hearted. He was succeeded by Benedict XI, and then in 1305 by a 
Frenchman, Clement V, who left Rome and settled in Avignon 
(1309). Philip, who had found the Italian pope difficult to deal 
with, now secured a virtual control over the Papacy and the College 
of Cardinals, the majority of whom were Frenchmen. On the 
border of the country of the Venaissin which Philip the Bold had 
given the Papacy in 1274, they settled in the city of Avignon, which 
then belonged to Provence, but which was later (1348) sold to 
Pope Clement VI. 

This exile of the Papacy, which lasted about seventy years 
(1309-1376), was bitterly resented by the Italians, who gave to 
it the name of the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. During 
that time the city of Rome itself, and all the cities within the 
domain of the Holy See, either adopted republican forms of gov- 
ernment or fell into the hands of petty feudal tyrants, who mis- 
ruled the people and gave little heed to the papal agents sent to 
govern for the pope and to collect the revenues. Rome, in spite 
of vanishing traces of republican institutions, such as the titles 
of Senator, Counselor, and Captain of the People, was in the 
hands of the nobles, especially of the Orsini and the Colonna 
families who dominated the city from the heights of the fortresses 
which they had constructed from the monuments of antiquity. 
" Tombs, baths, and theaters had been turned into fortresses. The 
Orsini held the Mole of Hadrian; the Savelli ensconced them- 



174 ITALY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

selves in the Theater of Marcellus, and the Colonnesi in the 
Mausoleum of Augustus; the Colosseum and the Arches of Con- 
stantine and Titus harbored the Frangipani; the baths of Trajan 
housed the Capocci; while the Gaetani made a castle of Caecilia 
Metella's tomb. Under those vast resounding vaults swarmed a 
brood of medieval bravi — like the wasps that hang their pear- 
shaped combs along the cloisters of Pavia " (Symonds). 

5. The Popes at Avignon. — The popes of Avignon, thus 
deprived of their territorial possessions in Italy and condemned 
to be the tools of French policy, felt compelled to make use of 
new financial resources which their virtual control of the clergy 
and the enormous wealth of the Church offered them. The 
pope exercised the right of filling the offices of bishop and abbot 
for the profit of the papal treasury. Thus, when a benefice was 
already filled, the pope might promise, upon the death of the holder, 
to bestow it on some one else. Further, by means of his dis- 
pensing power, the pope could set aside the rules of the Church 
which required that a bishop or abbot should live in his diocese or 
his abbey, and that he could hold but one office. This manipulation 
enabled one man to hold several bishoprics or abbeys and to en- 
joy their revenues without ever visiting them. These were called 
'' pluralities," and were a source of income to the pope. From 
indulgences, dispensations, fines, and fees for the administration 
of church laws in the Supreme Court of the Church (the Papal 
curia), and in various other ways a vast sum of money was diverted 
into the papal treasury at Avignon. As one consequence of this 
wealth the court at Avignon became very luxurious and worldly. 
Intellectually, it was brilliant and literary, and on the artistic side 
large sums were employed in embellishing the papal palace; but 
in spite of this the Papacy was conscious of the muttered envy of 
the princes and the open discontent of the people as well as the 
growing force of the heresies that were being preached by John 
Wyclif in England, and by John Hus in Bohemia. One pope 
"succeeded another, however, without troubling himself very much 
about the spiritual welfare of Christendom. 

6. Rienzi (1347-1354). — The continued absence of the popes 
from Rome left it and the Papal States a prey to the violence and 
misrule of the feudal nobility. At this time, when the people 
were goaded almost beyond endurance by injustice and anarchy, 



RIENZI 175 

a champion appeared in the person of Cola di Rienzi. Inspired by 
the classical historians and orators whose works he had studied with 
enthusiasm, he conceived the idea of restoring the republican forms 
of government of the old Roman state. The sanction which he 
relied upon for this enterprise was significantly threefold: the 
sanction of antiquity ; the sanction of religion ; and the authority 
of the Church. For, in preaching to the people the resurrection 
of the glorious past, he believed that he was called by God to 
regenerate his native land, and he made his appeal to the pope. 
Clement VI was apparently convinced that he might be useful, 
for he made him Notary of the Apostolic Chamber. Armed with 
this indorsement, and supported by the example of Tiberius 
Gracchus, Rienzi presented himself at the Capitol in 1347 and 
took the title of " Tribune of the Holy Roman Republic by the 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." He then proclaimed a new 
constitution, made new laws, formed a militia, drove out the 
barons, and proceeded to govern the city. " Surrounding himself 
with great pomp, he received embassies from the Italian cities, and 
summoned the emperor, Louis of Bavaria, the College of Electors, 
and the College of Cardinals, to appear before him; but the 
extravagance of his pretensions soon alienated the support of the 
pope, and his crushing taxes the good-will of the people. The 
pope then excommunicated him and so stirred up the nobles against 
him that Rienzi fled to a monastery in the Abruzzi and then 
to Emperor Charles IV, who surrendered him to the pope 
(1352). Clement VI declared him a seditious fellow and a 
heretic, and released him only at the intercession of Petrarch, with 
whom Rienzi was on a footing of warm friendship. When Inno- 
cent VI became pope, he made him Senator and sent him back 
to Rome with a legate, Albornoz (1354), hoping in this way to 
use the influence of the Tribune against the nobles. For a time, 
indeed, he was successful, but his heavy taxes and despotic rule 
again won for him the general hatred of the people, and he was 
murdered in an uprising directed by the nobles (October 8, 1354). 
After the mob had dragged his body through the city they 
burned it and cast his ashes to the winds. Rienzi was merely 
an eloquent agitator, and his scheme only visionary. Its chief 
significance lies in the response which his appeal to antiquity 
obtained. 



176 ITALY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

Albornoz, thus rid of Rienzi, conducted a war with great vigor 
against the enemies of the Papacy, and at the end of ten years he 
had almost entirely reconstructed the patrimony of Saint Peter. 
Unfortunately, he died just at the moment when Urban V re- 
turned to Rome. 

7. Florence Before the Medici. — Rome thus failed to be- 
come a republic in the XIV century. In Tuscany, on the other 
hand, the downfall of the Plohenstaufen house contributed to 
the establishment of a number of self-governing towns in the midst 
of the struggle between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. In the 
city of Florence, the Guelfs, who had been conquered at Monta- 
perti (1260), recovered the upper hand when Charles of Anjou 
came to Italy in 1267. The Ghibelline town of Pisa in its war 
with Genoa lost its power on the sea and also Corsica. This 
was after the battle of Meloria, which was won by the Genoese 
(1268). The Guelf faction finally won in the battle at Cam- 
paldino, but they almost at once divided into two factions, the 
Whites and the Blacks. These factions contended for power 
just as the Guelfs and Ghibellines had done, and the Blacks, with 
the help of Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, 
drove the Whites out of the city. Among them was the poet, 
Dante, who stigmatized in his Divine Comedy his adversaries and 
the popes to whom they owed their triumph. 

8. The Rise of the Medici. — With the resumption of the war 
against Pisa, the Florentines intrusted the government of their city 
for life to one of the boldest adventurers of the Middle Ages, 
Walter VI of Brienne. He already bore the title of Duke of 
Athens, and had served at different times both Naples and France. 
It was his plan to form an absolute government in Florence, but 
the jealous populace who had raised him to power drove him 
out. Five years later, in 1348, the city was frightfully ravaged 
by the pestilence called the Black Death, or the Plague of Flor- 
ence. Next, the Visconti and the Great Companies threatened 
its independence. Finally, the aggressions of the nobility and the 
struggle for mastery between the major guilds and the minor 
guilds were added to her other misfortunes. The revolt of the 
minor guilds, led by the wool-carder Michel di Lano (Ciompi), in 
1378, brought to prominence the first Medici to win distinction. 
This was Sylvester de' Medici, a rich wool merchant. He was 



THE RISE OF THE MEDICI i77 

the real leader of the revolt, and it was he who thus laid the 
foundations for the popularity of his family by espousing the cause 
of the people. When John de' Medici ( 1360-1429) came to power, 
additional and permanent elements in the future success of his 
family are to be found. He built up a fortune in trade, and 
established the Medici Banks in Italy and abroad, and thus pre- 
pared the way to power for his son, the first great man of the 
family, Cosimo, called the ''Elder" (1389-1464), and after his 
death " the Father of his Country." He is credited with having 
said " the State cannot be ruled by pater-nosters," and he " solved 
the problem of becoming the absolute ruler of a republic keenly 
jealous of its liberty without holding any office, and without 
appearing to be aught but a private citizen." He seems to have 
done this largely by force of his able and crafty personality, aided 
by the fact that he was the great citizen banker who could finance 
a war when it was necessary. At any rate, after his enemies, the 
Albizzi, had exiled him, Florence found that she could not get 
along without him, and with his triumphant return in 1434 the 
fortunes of Florence and those of the Medici family for the next 
three centuries were inseparably bound together. 

In his foreign policy he was equally astute. When Nicholas V 
was still a cardinal, Cosimo loaned him large sums of money, a 
favor which he returned when he was pope by transacting the 
papal business through the Medici Bank at Rome. Cosimo 
in the same way won the friendship of Francesco Sforza by 
advancing him money when he needed it to become Duke of 
Milan. 

He was the friend of artists and of scholars, perhaps because he 
saw that it would be popular, and he gave his patronage to such 
men as Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Luca della Robbia. 
As a patron of letters he bought a great many Greek and Latin 
manuscripts, and his house was an asylum for Greek refugees from 
Constantinople. It was due to his admiration for the philosophy 
of Plato, too, that the famous Platonic Academy of Florence was 
founded. After the rule of his son he was succeeded in 1469 by 
his two grandsons, Julian and Lorenzo the Magnificent. 

Thus, little by little, the Florentine democracy tended to trans- 
form itself into a princely tyranny which the people preferred to 
the oligarchical tyranny of the Guelf party. 



178 ITALY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

9. The Venetian Republic. — Venice has a history apart from 
the rest of Italy. In fact, she hardly belonged to the Peninsula, 
for, as Sedgwick says, " So completely did she hold herself aloof 
from the great interests of medieval Italy — the Empire and the 
Papacy, — that no cries of Pope's men and King's men, of Guelf 
and Ghibelline, disturbed the Grand Canal or the Piazza of 
Saint Mark's; no feudal incumbrances hampered her mercantile 
spirit, nor did papal anathemas cause a single Venetian ship to 
shift her course." She looked to Constantinople, and *' kept 
steadily in view her fixed purpose of increasing her commerce and 
of securing foreign markets." 

Her only rivals were Genoa and Milan, and it was the wars 
which she waged for commerce with them and with others that 
shaped and made necessary the compact government which char- 
acterized " the Queen of the Adriatic." At first any citizen might 
be elected to the great governing body, the Great Council, but by 
the XIV century only those whose ancestors had sat in the Great 
Council were eligible. The power of the Doge was then limited, 
and the various functions of the government were intrusted to the 
Senate, the Council of Forty, the Doge's Cabinet, and the Council 
of Ten, who acted absolutely and secretly and gave to Venice the 
final form of her government. 

10. Italy During the Schism. Nicholas V. — During the 
Great Schism the misfortunes of Italy reached their highest point 
( 1 378-1447). Neither John XXIII nor his rivals, Benedict 
XIII and Gregory XII, found at Avignon or at Rome either 
resources or prestige enough to command obedience, and the 
Italians who profited by the financial embarrassment of the Papacy 
made little attempt towards a reform of the Church. Nevertheless, 
Rome somewhat recovered its éclat under Eugene IV ( 143 1- 1447) 
and Nicholas V (1447- 1455). The latter, himself a humanist, 
became the protector of the Greeks from Constantinople and the 
artists of the XV century and was the founder of the Vatican 
Library as well. He governed Rome with energetic vigilance and 
sent Stephen Porcari to the scaffold for his attempt to oppose an 
aristocracy to the government by the Papacy. 

11. The Popes at the End of the XV Century.— The 
recollection of the dangers which had threatened the Roman 
Church during the Great Schism did not survive beyond the 



THE CAREER OF CAESAR BORGIA 179 

pontificate of Nicholas V. The first of the Spanish popes, Calixtus 
IV, gave himself over to unbridled nepotism. Pius II, the liberal 
secretar}^ of the Council of Basel, attempted to launch a crusade 
for the recapture of Constantinople, and the disappointment of 
his hopes hurried on his death at Ancona (1464). 

With Sixtus IV began the political advancement of that family. 
These peasants' sons made their nephews nobles of the Romagna or 
cardinals, and one of them, Julius Rovere, w^as afterwards Pope 
Julius II. The passionate enthusiasm of Sixtus IV for letters 
and the arts places him in a rather favorable light in the eyes 
of history, although he did not hesitate to protect murderous con- 
spiracies such as that of the Pazzi against the Medici at Florence. 
Innocent VIII, his successor, also devoted himself to the advance- 
ment of the fortunes of his house, and for this, and for his chil- 
dren, rather than for his virtues, his memory should rank with 
that of Alexander VI. 

12. The Borgia. Alexander VI (1492-1503).— Roderigo 
Borgia, Cardinal of Valentia, had his origin in Spain, and by Lady 
Venozza dei Catani he had several children, the eldest of whom, 
Giovanni, Duke of Gandia, inherited the possessions of the Borgia 
family in Spain; the third, Caesar, was made Bishop of Pam- 
plona by Innocent VIII at the age of fourteen. In 1492 the fac- 
tion of the Borgia in the College of Cardinals imposed Roderigo 
upon the faction of the Rovere and he became Pope Alexander VI. 
Caesar, without ever having taken orders, was made Cardinal of 
Santa Maria Majora and Archbishop of Valentia. Alexander VI 
was a man of vast energy, of great intelligence, and absolutely 
without scruple. His single aim was the creation in the heart of 
Italy of a strongly centralized pontifical state which should 
exercise a hegemony over the entire peninsula, but he was quite 
overshadowed by the personality of his son, Caesar. 

13. The Career of Caesar Borgia. — Just at the moment 
when the French were invading Italy under Charles VIII, 
Alexander VI's enemy, Cardinal Julian Rovere, succeeded in 
rousing against him the Orsini, the Colonna, and the other Roman 
nobles, but the appearance of the French enabled the pope to 
attack his enemies as the open supporters of the foreign invader. 
The duke of Gandia, his eldest son, in spite of Caesar's jealousy, 
was made commander of the papal forces {Gonfalonier) ^ but 



i8o ITALY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

after a banquet which Caesar gave his brother at his mother's 
house, the duke of Gandia was never again seen alive and his 
body was taken from the Tiber the next day. The inquiry which 
Alexander VI, in an access of rage and grief, at once set in motion 
came to a sudden end, and it was the popular belief of the time 
that, convinced of Caesar's guilt, the pope was afraid to discover 
the murderer. From now on Alexander seems to have been terri- 
fied into submission by the uncontrolled audacity of his son which 
his vaunting motto *' Aut Caesar aut nihilo," adequately expresses. 

The expedition of Charles VIII had overthrown the Sforza of 
Milan; the Aragonese of Naples were crushed; and the Medici 
were driven from Florence. The Borgia family alone had main- 
tained its integrity. Every circumstance thus favored the Borgia 
plan of welding into a compact state the various titular de- 
pendencies of the Holy See in the Romagna. 

Circumstances in France favored the advancement of the Borgia 
interests abroad as well. Louis XII just then desired to divorce 
Queen Jeanne of France in order that he might marry Anne of 
Brittany, and to Caesar the pope intrusted the negotiations and 
the necessary dispensation. Satisfied with the attainment of his 
desires and having secured the papal alliance, Louis gave Caesar 
the title and the duchy of Valentinois, and in 1499 Caesar, having 
married Charlotte d'Albret, sister of the king of Navarre, styled 
himself Caesar Borgia of France. 

Named Captain of the Church and Lieutenant of the King 
of France in the Romagna, Caesar now pursued without pity 
all the little tyrants who had carved out principalities for them- 
selves there. He took Imola and Forli from Catharine Sforza, 
widow of Jerome Riario, compelled Malatesta to surrender in 
Rimini, and drove out of Pesaro John Sforza, the husband of his 
sister Lucretia. Astorre Manfredi surrendered Faenza and died, 
probably from poison, as did Bentivoglio of Bologna. The second 
husband of Lucretia, Alfonso of Bisceglia, was killed by his 
orders near the Vatican, and died almost in the arms of his 
wife, who seems to have been in all these tragedies rather a passive 
instrument in the hands of her brother and of her father, than an 
accomplice. Caesar then took the title of Prince of Romagna, 
ruled with energy, and restored order. Implacable toward the 
barons themselves, Caesar was received with acclamation by the 



THE CAREER OF CAESAR BORGIA i8i 

people, to whom he granted many municipal franchises. Then he 
attacked the tyrants of the Marches and of Umbria, took Urbino, 
seized Camerino from Vitellozzo Vitellozzi, who was killed. He 
then despoiled the Orsini and took Fermo from Oliverotto, while 
many of the nobles who defended their possessions against Caesar 
were removed either by the sword or by poison. 

The continued success of Caesar's plans now roused the appre- 
hension of the remaining princes, and they formed a secret offen- 
sive league against him ; but he was more than equal to meeting 
this danger. By means of threats and flattery he broke up the 
league and enlisted many of the leaguers in his own service. Then, 
having taken possession of their castles, he lured the leaders of the 
plot, whom he had separated from their soldiers, into the castle 
of Sinigaglia and had them all strangled there. The massacre 
of Sinigaglia raised Caesar to the pinnacle of fame, and he was 
tremendously feared, hated, and admired for what he had done. 
For, by force of character and by the unscrupulous use of the 
very means that they would have employed against him, he snared 
his foes when they would have taken him. 

For his part. Pope Alexander VI, by his able diplomacy, en- 
deavored to preserve Italy from foreign domination, and increased 
his treasury by means of confiscations and perhaps even by 
assassinations. He died in 1503, carried off probably by malarial 
fever, and not apparently by the poison which in concert with 
Caesar he had prepared for one of the cardinals. Pope Pius III, 
the next pope, preserved to Caesar the title of Gonfalonier of the 
Church, but Julian del Rovere (Julius II) gave it to the king 
of Spain. Caesar was able to escape from Italy, but was killed 
(1507) in Navarre in the service of his brother-in-law, Henry 
d'Albret. 

" He by no means constitutes a monstrous exception among the 
Italian princes of the XV century. Undoubtedly he was the 
demon of his family, and properly he should bear the greater part 
of the odium which attaches to the Borgia name; but most of his 
contemporaries, the Visconti, the Sforza, the Este, the Bentevogli, 
were equally cruel, unscrupulous, and knavish, equally careless of 
public opinion and of morality. Yet none of them displayed in 
his rôle of despot more audacity, more tenacity of purpose, or more 
indifference to crime. None of them had a soul farther removed 



i82 ITALY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

from any scruple of remorse than Caesar. He was the very 
virtuoso of despotism, and it is this character which explains why 
he was chosen as the hero by Machiavelli for his Prince/' 

14. Lorenzo de' Medici (1464-1492). — After the brief and 
unsuccessful rule of Piero de' Medici, his two sons Lorenzo and 
Julian succeeded him, and in a short time the chief enemies of 
their family combined against them. The leaders were the Pazzi, 
whom Lorenzo had sought to ruin in business, the Salviati, and 
Pope Sixtus IV, whose plan for erecting a state on the frontiers 
of Florence had been blocked by the Medici. Among the con- 
spirators were the pope's nephews and Archbishop Salviati. In 
1478 both the brothers were attacked in the cathedral at Florence, 
and Julian was killed. Lorenzo escaped, and at once took thor- 
oughgoing and bloody vengeance. Among others whom he pun- 
ished was Archbishop Salviati, whom he hanged, and the pope's 
nephew, whom he shut up in prison. Sixtus excommunicated him, 
placed the city under an interdict, and declared war on Florence. 
Louis XI and Venice interceded in his behalf, but Lorenzo, 
nevertheless, felt that he was in great danger. To extricate him- 
self from this difficulty he made a bold journey to the presence of 
the pope's ally, Ferdinand, King of Naples, and by placing him- 
self in Ferdinand's hands and by paying him a large tribute, ob- 
tained his friendship and peace with the pope. This move was 
very well considered from the standpoint of Florentine diplomacy, 
inasmuch as Milan and Naples were both jealous of Venice, and 
both subject to attack from France. It was plain that if Florence 
was to retain her alliance with Milan she must give up her 
hostility to Naples and become an ally, and if the friendship of 
Milan and Naples could be secured, Florence might then annex 
the republic of Lucca on the north and Siena on the south. 
She could thus check the control by Venice of the trade routes 
over the mountains, and from her position in the center of Italy, 
by throwing the weight of her alliance with Naples and Milan on 
the one hand, or with Venice and the pope on the other, become 
the arbiter of Italy. It is this strategic diplomatic position that 
caused Lorenzo to be styled ** the needle of the Italian compass." 

In the city of Florence itself he owed a large amount of his 
power to his ability to control the great offices of the State and 
the apportionment of the taxes. By this means he was able to 



SAVONAROLA 183 

ruin his enemies and to advance his friends. As a patron of letters 
his house and table were the school and the resort of the most 
renowned artists, philosophers, and men of letters in Italy, among 
the most illustrious of whom was Michael Angelo. Intelligent, 
and with broad ideas, artistic and poetical, he deserved his surname, 
" the Magnificent." Lorenzo himself possessed an intellect of ex- 
ceptional vigor and versatility, and he took an active part in the 
intellectual labors of the period. It is a tribute to his penetra- 
tion, moreover, that he saw the desirability of abandoning the 
Latin language of scholarship for the vernacular of the Florentine 
people, and in this medium he wrote with remarkable vigor and 
elegance. The weakness of his rule was its economic or administra- 
tive side, for he was a poor business man, and when his own 
fortune diminished he did not hesitate to take what he needed 
from the State Treasury. Yet in spite of this dishonesty and his 
open immorality of life, he secured peace and prosperity within 
and without, and his gorgeous pageants and fêtes, his gifts to the 
humanists and to men of letters, justified in the eyes of the nation 
the means which he chose. Indeed, it is in this character as the 
great Maecenas of the Renaissance that Lorenzo is best and most 
favorably known. 

15. Savonarola (1452-1498). — In direct hostility to every in- 
fluence that Lorenzo the Magnificent had exerted in Florence 
stood his contemporary, Jerome Savonarola. After Lorenzo's in- 
capable son, Piero, had been driven out by the republican move- 
ment, Florence fell for a time completely under the sway of this 
celebrated Dominican monk. An enemy of the Papacy and of 
the pagan Renaissance, he had come to Florence with his mind 
made up to combat, by means of his preaching, that scholarly and 
artistic movement which was the most profound expression of the 
spirit of the time. His eloquence made a deep impression, espe- 
cially upon women and artists, among the latter, Botticelli, Fra 
Bartolommeo, and Michael Angelo. As Prior of the Convent of 
San Marco he was pow^erful enough to impose his authority even 
upon Lorenzo de' Medici, who is said to have humbled himself be- 
fore him on his deathbed. 

The remarkable fulfilment of his striking prophecies vastly 
increased the power of Savonarola, and in 1495 he became the 
political adviser of the restored republic, which reformed the con- 



i84 ITALY IN XIV AND XV CENTURIES 

stitution according to his ideas, and proclaimed Christ as its king. 
For a time he succeeded in directing in Florence the most extreme 
ascetic reformation of morals in her history. Not content with 
the striking change which he had brought about in the pagan 
city of Florence, Savonarola went so far as to attempt to re- 
form the morals of Rome itself, and openly spoke of calling 
a Church Council under Charles VIII for the purpose of de- 
posing Alexander VI. Neither the pope nor Charles VIII paid 
very much attention to his words at first, rightly judging that 
Italy was at that time too deeply penetrated with the love of 
art and of letters for the very long continued popularity of a 
man who condemned to the flames paintings which had been in- 
spired by pagan mythology, and public opinion began to turn 
against him when he wavered in the presence of an epidemic which 
desolated Florence in 1496. Alexander VI, indifferent enough to 
his preaching, was nevertheless willing to turn to his own imme- 
diate profit this sudden reversal of opinion, and having in vain 
commanded Savonarola to cease preaching and to come to Rome, 
finally excommunicated him in 1497. The threats of the pope 
had by this time begun to frighten the rulers of Florence; at the 
same time, the partisans of the Medici, the opponents of rigorous 
morality, and the Franciscans' jealousy of the Dominicans were 
uniting all the enemies of Savonarola against him. Finally a 
Franciscan proposed to undergo the ordeal of fire with a Domin- 
ican, as a test of the truth of Savonarola's teaching. The date was 
fixed at April 7th, but at the last moment the Dominican refused 
to make the test. This was the death-blow to Savonarola's prestige. 
After the Florentine populace had stormed the Convent of San 
Marco, Savonarola was imprisoned and put to torture. It was 
announced at the time that he admitted the falsity of his prophecies, 
and he was condemned to death with two other monks May 22d. 
The next day he marched courageously to the scaffold in the 
public square of Florence, and was hanged. After this his body 
was burned. Some writers have mistakenly considered him as one 
of the precursors of the Reformation. This he was not, inasmuch 
as he attacked only the vices of the Church, never the Church 
itself. 

16. Ludovico II Moro. — While Florence was painfully en- 
deavoring to re-establish the manners and institutions of the 



LUDOVICO IL MORO 185 

republican past, Milan, after the shameful rule of Galeazzo 
Maria Sforza, was governed by Ludovico II Moro, a prince, the 
most adroit and the most refined in Italy. By means of poison 
he freed himself of the presence of his ward, Giovanni Galeazzo, 
son of Galeazzo Maria, during the expedition of Charles VIII, 
whom he had summoned into Italy. Ludovico II Moro, passion- 
ately given over to luxury and the arts, the friend of Leonardo da 
Vinci, but destitute of any moral scruple, is one of the most bril- 
liant representatives of that Italy of the Renaissance where ability 
and love of beauty took the place of virtue. 



CHAPTER XIII 
LOUIS XI (1461-1483) 

1. France in the Middle of the XV Century. — The second 
half of the XV century witnessed the culmination of an important 
revolution. On all sides in France the authority of the crown 
was raising itself upon the ruins of feudalism; everywhere the 
kings were endeavoring to break down the opposition of the 
nobility and of the Church. They were endeavoring at the same 
time to surround themselves with permanent standing armies, to 
create regular sources of income, to organize royal justice, and to 
assure public peace and order throughout the realm. It is dur- 
ing the reign of Louis XI especially that this monarchical trans- 
formation takes place in France. In spite of the tremendous 
progress which the preceding reigns had witnessed, the authority 
of the French crown had still to reckon with the feudal aristocracy. 
That aristocracy had, indeed, changed in character. To the 
ancient feudal dynasties with which the first Capetians had been 
obliged to contend, new dynasties, issues of the royal family itself, 
had succeeded in well-nigh every province. Some of the earlier 
monarchs had adopted the custom of apportioning certain parts of 
the domain to their youngest sons, under the name of appanages. 
There had thus come into existence several feudal houses whose 
ambition was necessarily formidable to monarchical authority. 
The powerful house of Bourbon, which descended from Robert of 
Claremont, son of Saint Louis, had divided into several branches 
and ruled almost the whole of the central plateau. The house of 
Alengon, the issue of Philip III, was in possession of the counties 
of Alençon and of Perche. The house of Anjou, ruler of Anjou, 
Maine, Lorraine, and Provence, was descended from a son of 
John the Good. The house of Burgundy, issue of another son 
of John the Good, Philip the Bold, continued to expand under 

186 



HIS CHARACTER 187 

John the Fearless and Philip the Good. It possessed Burgundy, 
Franche-Comté, the counties of Macon, Auxerre, and Bar, 
the cities of the Somme, and all the Low Countries from Artois 
to Friesland. Vassal of France, and of the empire, as a matter 
of fact it was dependent upon neither the king nor the emperor. 
The house of Orléans, issue of Charles V, comprised the two 
branches of Orléans and Angouleme, and possessed the duchy of 
Orléans, the counties of Dreux, Blois, Valois, and Angouleme. 
The house of Artois, issue of Louis VIII, held only the county 
of Eu. The house of Brittany, which went back to Louis VI, 
possessed the duchy of Brittany, and sought to be free from the 
suzerainty of the king of France. Other feudal houses equaled 
this appanaged feudalism in power; such, for example, were the 
houses of Penthievre, Foix, Armagnac, Albret, La Tremoille, 
Sancerre, Tonnerre, Montmorency, and the like. Several for- 
eign houses, too, held possessions in France, notably those of Lux- 
emburg, Vaudemont, Navarre, and Aragon. Among these vast 
and formidable possessions, the royal domain, properly speaking, 
scarcely comprised a third part of France: Normandy, Champagne, 
the Ile-de-France, a small part of Picardy, Tourain, Poitou, Berry, 
Aunis, Saintonge, Guienne, Languedoc, Lyonnais, and Dauphiny. 
It needed a strong hand indeed to extend this domain, to curb the 
aristocracy, and to make everywhere felt the supreme authority of 
the monarchy. This was to be the task of Louis XI, who was 
to be the first king of Modern France. 

2. The Accession of Louis XI. — When Charles VII died, in 
146 1, the Dauphin Louis had been living for six years with the 
duke of Burgundy, who had offered to him an asylum. The new 
king, who had by this time reached the age of thirty-eight years, 
at once set out for Rheims, accompanied by Philip the Good and 
the élite of the Burgundian nobility. He was formally crowned 
by the archbishop, John Jouvenel des Ursins, in the presence of 
the greater part of the princes and nobles of the realm. Then he 
took his leave of the Burgundians, whose insolent ostentation was 
offensive to him, and betook himself to Paris, where magnificent 
fêtes were waiting to celebrate his joyous accession. 

3. His Character. — Few people in history have been judged in 
such diverse and contradictory manner as Louis XL Among his 
contemporaries, Comines declared that he never knew a prince who 



i88 LOUIS XI 

had fewer vices than he, while on the other hand Thomas Bazin 
compares him to Nero and Domitian. He appears in the accounts 
of the time now a powerful and sinister tyrant, now a democratic 
king, the friend of the people, and devoted to the cause of na- 
tional unity. Without any doubt, Louis XI was superstitious and 
knavish, a bad son, an indifferent husband and father, but he 
always knew how to be king. He possessed a tremendous amount 
of vitality. The chronicler, Chastelain, pictures him as a " uni- 
versal spider, passing his life in spinning slowly and patiently the 
threads of the web in which he planned to entangle his enemies." 
Exercising a finesse which was entirely Italian, he preferred 
trickery to force, address to courage, and took for his motto the 
words which he often repeated, " He who does not know how 
to dissimulate, does not know how to rule." He had one passion 
only, the passion for power. Knavery, deceit, occasionally even 
cruelty, were nothing to him, and he did not hesitate, according to 
Barante, "' to pay his conscience as he did his adversaries, with 
pure formality." He despised the ostentation with which he had 
become so familiar at the court of Burgundy, and clothed him- 
self simply with a doublet of fustian, and in a cape of gray cloth, 
keeping apart from his entourage of pompous and bombastic 
courtiers. Affable, and unconstrained, he lavished flatteries upon 
the Parisirn tradespeople, entered their shops, ate at their tables, 
and consented to act as godfather to their children. He loved 
to be served by people of humble origin, made his barber, Oliver 
le Daim, a gentleman of the chamber, and Tristan, the hermit, 
a provost of merchants and his intimate counselor. 

Although he was not a politician with a wide political horizon, 
and although a great part of his success appears to have been due to 
a happy chance, rather than to his prudence and to his shrewdness, 
he nevertheless was able to assure to the interior of France the 
triumph of royalty over feudalism, and to give to the government 
of France that completely modern aspect of an absolute bourgeois 
monarchy whose traits did not fail to be emphasized after him in 
spite of the chivalrous follies of the Valois and the pharisaic pride 
of a Louis XIV. 

4. Early Years of His Reign (1461-1464).— His first acts, 
influenced as they were by his personal resentments, made him nu- 
merous enemies, since it was always a shortcoming of his to act with 



THE LEAGUE OF THE PUBLIC WEAL 189 

precipitation and to allow himself to be involved by reason of his 
antipathies. The ministers of the late king he dismissed. He 
partially revived the Parlement and the Chamber of Accounts, 
re-established in their honors those w^hom his father had im- 
prisoned, and granted letters of pardon to the duke of Alençon, 
and to the count of Armagnac. At the same time, he displeased 
the people by increasing the taille, and by pitilessly chastising those 
who had taken part in the revolt at Rouen and at Rheims. He 
forbade the University of Paris to concern itself with the affairs 
of either the king or the city, and limited the jurisdiction of the 
Parlements of Paris and of Toulouse by creating, at their expense, 
that of Bordeaux. The clergy he offended by revoking the Prag- 
matic Sanction of Bourges, and the nobility, by striking a blow 
at their right of the chase. He lost the good-will of the duke 
of Brittany when he restrained his independence by exacting from 
him liege homage and when he subordinated the Parlement of 
Rennes to the Parlement of Paris. Nor did he spare even the 
powerful house of Burgundy, or the king of Aragon; for he re- 
deemed from old Duke Philip the cities of the Somme, which the 
count of Charolais, Philip's son, wished to keep at any price, and 
made the king of Aragon give him Cerdagne and Roussillon for 
three hundred and fifty thousand crowns of gold. 

5. The League of the Public Weal (1464).— From the dis- 
content aroused by these acts proceeded the League of the Public 
Weal. Upon all sides alliances began to be formed against Louis 
XI, and toward the end of the year 1464, more than five hundred 
princes or barons were found to be involved in a powerful feudal 
federation. The conspirators invoked '* the public good, and the 
relief of the poor," promising to reduce the taxes and to redress 
all grievances. Thus Louis XI found himself face to face with 
great peril. Knowing that he had blundered, he hastened to sum- 
mon an assembly of the nobles at Tours, where he called atten- 
tion to the beneficial results of the first years of his reign, and 
demanded the assistance of the princes against the duke of Brit- 
tany. They all, to be sure, swore to support him even to death, 
but the greater part of them were already adherents of the League 
of the Public Weal. Scarcely had the assembly broken up than 
the duke of Berry, the king's brother, left the court, passed into 
Brittany, hurled a manifesto against his brother, and summoned 



igo LOUIS XI 

the count of Charolals to the help of the nobility and the people. 
At once the revolt broke out on all sides. 

6. The Battle of Montlhéry (1465).— Louis XI did not 
flinch. He renewed his treaty with England, cemented his alliance 
with the people of Liège, signed a treaty with Francesco Sforza of 
Milan, who sent him some condottieri, treated with the king of 
Naples, obtained money from the Medici, came to an understanding 
with Pope Paul II, disclosed in a proclamation addressed to the 
people the selfishness of the rebels, and sent to Paris two of his con- 
fidential advisers, Charles of Melun, Bailiff of Sens, and John Ba- 
lue. Bishop of Evreux. Meanwhile, the count of Charolais and the 
duke of Brittany rapidly pushed on to Paris, where they had made 
a rendezvous. On July 5th, the Burgundians appeared at Saint 
Denis, and threatened the capital. The king proceeded at all 
possible speed to Montlhéry, addressing letters to the Parisians, 
in which he assured them of his " great love and affection." His 
desire was to win the capital without a battle, but on July i6th, 
the Sire de Brézé, who was in command of the advance guard, 
began the action. Louis XI fought valiantly, and overthrew the 
body of troops of which the count of Saint-Pol was in command, 
although the count of Charolais put to flight the left wing of the 
royal army. The Burgundians slept upon the field of battle, and 
claimed the victory; but in reality the combat remained indecisive, 
though the king had attained his aim by opening up for himself the 
road to Paris. While Charles the Bold, Count of Charolais, was 
thus acting in conjunction with Francis II of Brittany, Louis XI, 
after urging the Parisians to resist, passed through the army of 
the enemy, proceeded into Normandy in search of reinforcements, 
and returned sixteen days later with two thousand men, food, and 
munitions. 

7. The Treaties of Conflans and of Saint-Maur (1465).— 
The king's great object was to gain time and to dissolve the 
League at any cost. To this end he entered into secret negotiations 
with the princes, made constant use of corruption, and followed 
the advice which his friend Sforza had given to him: ''Refuse 
nothing that they ask, provided 5^ou break up this alliance." 
Louis XI betook himself to Charolais, flattered him adroitly, 
brought him to Paris, and ended by granting everything which the 
princes demanded, firmly resolved not to keep his promises, once 



THE BREAKING OF THE TREATIES 191 

the League was dissolved. He immediately signed the treaty 
of Conflans with Charolais and that of Saint-Maur with the 
princes. Louis XI gave Normandy to his brother in place of 
Berry; to the count of Charolais the counties of Boulogne and of 
Guines, with full proprietorship of the castles of Peronne, Roye, 
and Ponthieu, and the cities of the Somme upon condition, how- 
ever, of being allow^ed to buy them back; to the duke of Brittany 
the restitution of all rights of regalia with the counties of Mont- 
fort and of Etampes; and to the duke of Lorraine, the March of 
Champagne. To the count of Saint-Pol he promised the Con- 
stable's sword; and finally he gave lands and pensions to all the 
rest of the barons. An assembly of thirty-six notables was to 
work upon the question of the public weal. This assembly really 
was not as useless as it sometimes has been considered, but it is 
nevertheless true that so far as the princes were concerned, ** the 
public weal," according to Comines, " was converted into private 
gain." 

8. The Breaking of the Treaties. — This humiliating peace 
should have been the ruin of France and of the monarchy. Louis 
XI understood this, and adroitly set about to redeem the blunders 
which he had made, and to take back what he had given away. 
He endeavored to sow dissension among the princes, to reattach 
to the royal cause the small nobility whom he had sacrificed, and 
the tradespeople whom he had forgotten. He was lavish with his 
gifts, his caresses, and all the resources of a cunning and insinuating 
nature. He recalled the greater part of the old ministers oi his 
father, gave the ofîice of Chancellor to Jouvenel des Ursins, and the 
command of the army to Dammartin. He bound the duke of 
Bourbon firmly to his interest by making him governor of a large 
part of central France, the bastard of Bourbon, by nominating 
him Admiral of France, the count of Saint-Pol by conferring upon 
him the Constable's sword, and the famous John of Calabria of 
the house of Anjou by giving to him one hundred and twenty 
thousand livres of which he stood in great need. He made him- 
self popular with the Parisians by suppressing a part of the aides, 
and by choosing his counselors from among the bourgeoisie. Par- 
lement, ably handled, refused to register the treaties, since it was 
extremely dangerous to leave in the hands of Charles of Berry the 
province of Normandy, which might serve as a point of union be- 



192 LOUIS XI 

tween the dukes of Burgundy and of Brittany, and which might 
offer a ready landing place for English armies. In order to pre- 
vent the count of Charolais from intervening in France, Louis XI 
raised against him the cities of Ghent, Dinant, and Liège, and in 
like manner he embroiled the dukes of Berry and Brittany. Hav- 
ing thus isolated his brother, he abruptly entered Normandy and 
conquered the whole province in a few weeks, while Charles of 
France sought an asylum in Brittany in 1466. 

9. The Second League of the Nobles (1467). — At once 
all the old foes of the king again raised their heads. The duke 
of Brittany when called upon to give up Charles of France, Duke 
of Berry, refused to comply, signed treaties of alliance with Eng- 
land, Denmark, and Savoy, and concluded a new league with the 
dukes of Berry, Alencon, and Charles, Count of Charolais. The 
latter had just defeated the inhabitants of Liège, at the battle of 
Saint-Tron, when on the 15th of July, 1467, he was called upon, 
as Charles the Bold, to succeed his father, Philip the Good. 
Grasping the danger with which he was threatened, he made a 
close alliance with Edward IV of York, whose sister he had 
married, and with Francis II of Brittany. In the presence of 
this new league, Louis XI appealed to public opinion. In April, 
1468, he called together the Estates General at Tours. To the 
deputies assembled there he demonstrated that it was his duty to 
preserve Normandy to France ; " This affair," he said, *' touches 
upon the universal prosperity of the land of France, and upon its 
continuance. As for myself, I am only a sojourner upon this earth, 
and I have no right to misuse my passage by bringing such 
prejudice upon the realm." The Estates approved his conduct, 
declared that the province could not be alienated, registered a 
protest against the conduct of Charles of Berry and the duke 
of Brittany, and promised to aid the king to the extent of their 
power. Armed with this decision, Louis marched against Francis 
II, obliged him to evacuate lower Normandy, and forced the 
duke of Berry to be content with a pension of sixty thousand livres. 
The duke of Brittany, threatened on both sides at once, consented to 
sign the treaty of Ancenis, in which he agreed to serve Louis XI 
faithfully. At the same time, the king of France urged anew the 
people of Liège to revolt against their duke, and embroiled the 
famous Warwick, " the king-maker," with Edward IV of England. 



BREAKING OF THE TREATY OF PÉRONNE 193 

10. The Interview at Péronne (1468).— Charles the Bold, 
who had just entered upon a campaign, was thus completely iso- 
lated, and it seemed as if all Louis XI had to do was simply 
to await the outcome; but with that impatience for results 
which he so often displayed, he resolved to interfere. In place of 
assuming the offensive as Dammartin had urged him to do, he 
preferred to follow the advice of Balue and the Constable of 
Saint-Pol. Placing confidence in his own astuteness, and in his 
seductive power of speech, he demanded and obtained a safe-conduct 
to visit Charles the Bold at Péronne. The two princes had 
carried on the discussion for two days, when suddenly word was 
brought that the people of Liege, urged on by Louis XI, had 
imprisoned their bishop, and had massacred several canons. 
Charles flew into a terrible rage, and swore that he would have 
vengeance upon Louis XI and the Flemish. He had the gates 
of the town closed, and kept his suzerain a prisoner for three 
days in the castle where Charles the Simple had died. He 
spoke of putting the king to death, of keeping him in prison, or 
of giving the crown to Charles of Berry. Louis XI, frightened 
for once, adroitly scattered gold and promises, and won over to 
his cause several of the Burgundian counselors, particularly Philip 
of Comines. Charles the Bold then consented to sign a treaty 
which satisfied all his own demands. Louis XI promised to give 
Champagne to his brother, Charles of Berry, in place of Normandy, 
to surrender Picardy with complete sovereignty to Charles of 
Burgundy, and to accompany the duke in his expedition against 
the people of Liège. He did actually accompany the duke, hurl- 
ing back the cry of, '' Vive Bourgogne! " against the besieged, who 
cried, '' Vive France ! " The town was given over to pillage, and 
the king obtained permission to return to Paris. Sadly he entered 
the capital, and when the parrots of the Parisian bourgeoisie along 
his route repeated the word " Péronne," the furious king had his 
archers seize all these *' chattering birds," which reminded him 
of his humiliation. 

11. The Breaking of the Treaty of Péronne. — The inter- 
view at Péronne was the last blunder which the king made in his 
struggle against Charles the Bold. He now set about the task 
of regaining the lost territory. In place of giving Champagne to 
his brother, which would have joined the two parts of the vast 



194 LOUIS XI 

domain of Charles, he induced him to accept rich Guienne in its 
place, knowing that he would thus separate him from the duke 
of Burgundy, and compromise him with England, which still 
maintained its pretensions to the province. He compelled the 
duke of Brittany to renounce altogether his alliance with England, 
and in order the better to keep an eye on him he bought the duke's 
favorite Lescun, attached to himself the Rohans, and acquired the 
rights of the house of Blois to Brittany. He condemned to death 
the governor of Paris, Charles of Melun, who had played a double 
rôle after Montlhéry, sent Dammartin against the duke of 
Nemours, to whom he granted pardon, and against the count of 
Armagnac, from whom he took all his possessions. Two traitors, 
the cardinal La Balue and the bishop of Berdun, had been in 
correspondence with the duke of Burgundy; he had them arrested 
and imprisoned for ten years. At the same time, he signed a 
treaty with the Swiss, the enemies of the duke of Burgundy, 
reconciled Warwick with the duke of Anjou, and sent aid to 
bring about the overthrow of Edward IV, the brother-in-law of 
Charles the Bold. Having thus isolated his enemy, he attacked 
him directly. He convoked an Assembly of Notables at Tours, 
which annulled the treaty of Péronne, and declared that the cities 
of the Somme ought to return to the royal domain. The decision 
was forthwith carried out by Dammartin and the Constable. 

12. The Third League of the Nobles (1471).— The vic- 
tories of Edward IV at Barnet and at Tewkesbury, however, and 
the intrigues of the count of Saint-Pol led to the formation of a 
new and formidable coalition. At the head of the enemies of the 
king were again his brother, Charles of Guienne, the dukes of 
Brittany and of Burgundy, the constable Saint-Pol, the kings of 
Aragon and of England, and the duke of Alençon. The confed- 
erates did not conceal their intention of dismembering the realm, 
and Charles the Bold is reported to have said : ** I love the realm 
so dearly that in place of one king, I would have six." Louis XI 
was struck with consternation ; he attempted to win to his cause 
the towns, demanded aid of Scotland, implored the mediation of 
the pope, and ordered that from that time on throughout the whole 
of France, ** every one should fall upon his knees and say three 
Ave Marias for good peace in the realm." This was the origin 
of the Angelus. Suddenly, the great obstacle which had stood 



LOUIS XI AND HIS DOMESTIC ENEMIES 195 

in the king's way disappeared; his brother Charles, Duke of 
Guienne, died on the 24th of May, 1472. His death so perfectly 
served the purpose of Louis XI that his enemies attributed that 
fatality to him. It was even said that he had poisoned his brother 
by means of a peach, which the abbé of Saint-Jean-d'Angély pre- 
sented to Charles of Guienne. But this accusation rests merely 
upon the account of Chastelain and upon an anecdote of Brantôme. 
Louis XI does not appear at all culpable ; yet he could not refrain 
from showing his cynical satisfaction, and the duke of Burgundy 
swore that he would be avenged upon Louis in a terrible fashion. 

13. The War with Burgundy. — While the king was having 
Guienne occupied by his troops, Charles the Bold crossed the 
Somme and entered the realm of France. He took the little town 
of Nesle by assault, and massacred the entire population, who had 
taken refuge in the great church. '' Saint George! " said he, push- 
ing his horse in among a fresh heap of corpses, *' but I have good 
butchers!" After having taken Roye and Montdidier, he ap- 
peared before Beauvais on the 27th of June, 1472, but the town 
energetically resisted every assault which the Burgundians made, 
even the women fighting upon the ramparts, and the duke had to 
raise the siege after having lost twenty thousand men. He turned 
his course toward Normandy, burned several towns, failed before 
Dieppe, and arrived at Rouen, where he had made a rendezvous 
with the duke of Brittany; but Louis XI had made rough war- 
fare on the Breton, from whom he had taken his chief cities, and 
had compelled him to sign a treaty of peace. Five days after- 
wards, Charles the Bold accepted the truce of Senlis. Louis XI 
had thus retrieved the mistake which he had made at Peronne. 

14. Louis XI and His Domestic Enemies. — A little while 
later when the duke of Burgundy was imprudently hurling him- 
self into the " boundless stretches of Germany," the king laid his 
plans to take vengeance upon the barons who had so many times 
turned against him. The duke of Alencon, whom he had pardoned 
upon the first occasion, had allied himself with all the plots 
directed against the royal authority. He was arrested, con- 
demned, and kept in prison until his death. His son, implicated 
in a conspiracy, was also condemned to perpetual imprisonment for 
high treason. The count of Armagnac, the miserable John V, 
already once condemned to death for forger}^, assassination, and 



196 LOUIS XI 

incest, had been restored to his possessions by Louis XL He 
showed his gratitude by corresponding with all the king's enemies. 
The cardinal of Albi, who was sent against him, took Lectoure and 
had the count of Armagnac poniarded. His cousin, the duke of 
Nemours, generously treated by the king, had betrayed him every 
time the opportunity presented itself. He was condemned to death 
and beheaded. The legend which represents Louis XI as having 
the children of the duke placed under the scaffold of their father, 
in order to have them covered with his blood, was invented later 
by the king's enemies. The count of Saint-Pol had labored for 
ten years to secure for himself an independent sovereignty. He 
had received the government of Normandy, the captaincy of 
Rouen, vast territories, and the Constable's sword, but the king of 
France, the king of England, and the duke of Burgundy per- 
ceived in the end that he had betrayed them all, each in his turn. 
Louis XI thereupon sent an army against him. The Constable 
took flight to Mons, but he was delivered up by the duke of Bur- 
gundy, and was beheaded at the Place de Grève. The Sire 
d'Albret met the same fate. At the same time that he was punish- 
ing the traitors, the king was making every effort to win the 
sympathies of the high nobility. He assured himself of the 
fidelity of the Bourbons by marrying his daughter, Anne of France, 
to Pierre de Beaujeu. He married his daughter Jeanne, who was 
sickly and incapable of bearing children, to Louis, the duke of 
Orléans, whose ambition he mistrusted. After having thus beaten 
or isolated all his domestic enemies, there were left to him only two 
adversaries, the king of England and the duke of Burgundy. 

15. The Projects of Charles the Bold.— After 1472, Charles 
the Bold turned his attention to Germany, Lorraine, and Switzer- 
land. His domains consisted at that time of two great groups 
of provinces : to the south, the duchy and the county of Burgundy ; 
to the north, the Low Countries. These were the richest, the 
most populous and the most industrious countries of Europe, but 
they were separated by Champagne, Lorraine, and Alsace. It 
was the whole ambition of Charles henceforth to join them into 
one vast and powerful state, which should extend from the North 
Sea to the Mediterranean. He was no longer content with the 
title of Grand Duke of the West, which had been given him, but 
he dreamed of reconstructing ancient Lotharingia, and of creating 



THE FOURTH LEAGUE 197 

a Gallic-Belgian kingdom. Master of Alsace, which had been 
pledged to him for a large sum of money by the archduke Sigis- 
mund, he purchased the duchy of Gueldre and the county of 
Zutphen. He negotiated with the emperor Frederick III, to 
obtain the title of king, and an interview had taken place at Treves 
in which Charles promised to give the hand of his only heiress, 
Mary of Burgundy, to Maximilian, the son of Frederick, but 
the emperor, skilfully worked upon by Louis XI, and eclipsed by 
the magnificent opulence of the Burgundian, suddenly left for 
Cologne two days before the promised coronation. Likewise, 
a plot, deftly conceived by the king of France, was set on foot 
against the duke. The archduke Sigismund, who had pledged 
Alsace by an hypothetical title only, returned to Charles the hun- 
dred thousand florins which he had borrowed; the people of Brei- 
sach put their Burgundian governor, Hagenbach, to death ; and the 
Swiss sent to Charles the Bold a formal defiance, invaded Franche- 
Comté, and were victorious at Hericourt. A coalition was now 
formed between the Swiss, the free cities of Alsace, the bishops 
of Basel and of Strasburg, and the archduke Sigismund, but it 
was the king of France who, without appearing at all on the 
scene, was able to manipulate this powerful coalition. 

16. The Fourth League (1475). — Upon news of this league, 
Charles again swore to take vengeance by overthrowing Louis XI, 
and by dismembering France. He made a new alliance with the 
king of England and the duke of Brittany, but, unmindful of his 
confederates, he settled down to the siege of the small city of Neuss, 
which had revolted against his ally, the elector of Cologne. He 
spent his force against it for eleven months, making in that time 
fifty-six futile assaults. For this failure he took vengeance upon 
Lorraine, by wresting it from its legitimate ruler, Rene II of 
Vaudemont. In the meantime his ally, Edward IV, who had 
landed at Calais with a fine army, had counted upon the support 
of the duke of Burgundy, but Charles was unable to join him. 
Louis, thereupon, won over the great part of Edward's counselors, 
and ended by signing the treaty of Picquigny with the king of 
England (August 20th, 1475). Edward IV obtained seventy-five 
thousand crowns for the expenses of the war, fifty thousand 
crowns as an annual pension, fifty thousand crowns for the ransom 
of Margaret of Anjou, and the promise of the hand of the 



198 LOUIS XI 

Dauphin for his daughter. Upon the news of this treaty, Charles 
the Bold hastened to Edward and reproached him for cowardice, 
but, in his turn, Charles consented to sign with Louis XI the truce 
of Soleure (September 13th, 1475). By its terms the two princes 
mutually gave up their allies, the duke abandoned the king of 
Aragon, and Louis XI pretended to deliver over the Swiss and the 
Alsatians to the ambition of Charles the Bold. 

17. The War of Charles the Bold Against the Swiss 
(1476). — The Duke of Burgundy quickly conquered Lorraine and 
then turned against the Swiss. In the month of January, 1476, 
he advanced against them at the head of forty thousand men. It 
was the struggle of the '' boar of the north against the bear of the 
Alps " which now opened. In vain the terrified Swiss offered to 
submit; he besieged the small town of Granson, the garrison of 
which he massacred. The army of Schwyz, Berne, Soleure, and 
of Fribourg advanced at once to retake the town, and with the 
cry of "Granson! Granson!" they hurled themselves upon the 
Burgundian army in a narrow plain where the cavalry did not 
have room to deploy. While the ducal cavalry was trying in 
vain to cut its way through the solid Swiss infantry, there was 
heard in the rear the sound of two gigantic horns, the Bull of Uri 
and the Cow of Unterwalden, which announced the arrival of 
numerous reinforcements. The Burgundians, seized with frantic 
terror, left the field of battle " like smoke before the north wind," 
and the conquerors found in the enemies' camp an immense 
treasure whose value they could not estimate: the throne of gold, 
which belonged to the duke, a gold collar of Toison, and the famous 
diamond of Sancy. 

Louis XI, who was watching the outcome from Lyons, re- 
newed his alliance with the duke of Milan, the king of England, 
and the duke of Brittany. He assured to himself the support of the 
duke of Savoy, and of good King Rene. The duke of Burgundy 
unwilling to see any one, had established himself at Lausanne, 
where he had got together a new army of adventurers assembled 
from all parts of Europe. With thirty-six thousand men he 
started on the campaign, swearing to breakfast at Morat, to dine at 
Fribourg, and to sup at Berne ; but at the small town of Morat his 
six assaults were victoriously repulsed. The Swiss, who had received 
important reinforcements from Alsace and Germany, came up and 



THE BURGUNDIAN SUCCESSION 199 

surrounded him on three sides; the fourth was closed by the Lake 
of Morat. Attacked with vigor, the soldiers of Charles the Bold 
were completely crushed ; and ten thousand of them perished, without 
counting those drowned. The Swiss gave no quarter and the say- 
ing " as cruel as at Morat " for a long time recalled that defeat. 
The pyramid made from the bones of the vanquished was not 
removed until 1798 by the Burgundians and the French of 
MacDonald. 

18. The Death of Charles the Bold (1477).— Charles, who 
had withdrawn to a castle in the Jura, fell into profound dejec- 
tion. Yet he came out of it quickly when he knew that Rene II 
had just reconquered Lorraine, and he attacked Nancy in the 
depth of winter. Rene, who had gone in search of reinforcements, 
returned with twenty thousand men. Charles, who had only 
four thousand mercenaries, was unwilling to retreat before a 
mere boy, and in spite of a thick snow which blinded the soldiers, 
he began the action. As his helmet was being placed on his head, 
the golden lion which formed its crest fell to the ground; where- 
upon the duke said sadly, " It is a sign from God." Then he 
mounted his horse and hurled himself into the mêlée. In a few 
moments the small Burgundian army was annihilated, and Charles 
disappeared in the battle. The next day they found his body half 
devoured by wolves, frozen in the ice of a pond near the city. 
Thus died the great Duke of the West. Generous and magnificent, 
immeasurably proud, though possessed of a mediocre intelligence, 
he carried down with him the house of Burgundy, which had been 
the great rival of the French monarchy. 

19. The Burgundian Succession. — Charles the Bold left his 
vast domains to his only heiress, a girl of twenty, Mary of Bur- 
gundy. Louis XI, who was her godfather and her guardian, 
resolved to make use of the right which feudal law gave to him 
of seizing a part of her inheritance. Burgundy was an appanage 
which reverted to the crown in default of male heirs, and he 
invaded Picardy, upon which the treaty of Arras had given him 
claims. Artois and Franche-Comté he occupied by virtue of the 
feudal right of wardship, while the Estates of Burgundy and the 
cities of the Somme recognized the pretensions of France. In 
order that the Burgundian succession should continue intact, Louis 
had to choose between two policies: to marry the Princess Mary 



200 LOUIS XI 

to the Dauphin, or to make war openly upon her. He oscillated 
between these two opposed positions, inclining now to one, now 
to the other, according to circumstances, and failed in this way 
by the excess of his duplicity in the great part which he had to 
fill; for during the entire time that Louis was carrying on the 
negotiations for the marriage of the heiress of Burgundy with the 
Dauphin, he was secretly arousing her subjects against her. The 
Flemish, enraged at seeing Hugonet and Humbercourt counseling 
the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to the French prince, massacred 
them at Ghent. The king of France had hoped that the princess 
in despair would have to turn to him, but Mary, exasperated 
with his double-dealing, gave herself with her rich provinces to 
Maximilian of Austria. This marriage united to Germany for 
several centuries provinces which were essentially French, and it 
thus became the starting-point of a struggle which lasted for many 
generations between the heirs of Maximilian and the successors of 
Louis XI. Crèvecœur invaded Hainaut at the head of the French 
army, which was beaten at Guinegate, 1479. Three years later, 
Mary of Burgundy died as the result of a fall from her horse, 
and the Estates of Flanders compelled Maximilian to sign with 
Louis XI the treaty of Arras. By this agreement, the conditions 
of which were not carried out, Margaret, the daughter of Mary 
and Maximilian, was to marry the Dauphin, and to bring as a 
dower the counties of Artois, Burgundy, Macon, and Auxerre. 
Picardy and the duchy of Burgundy, however, remained definitely 
joined to the royal domain. 

20. The Death of Louis XI (1483).— Louis survived this 
treaty only a short time. Two years before, in 1481, when he 
was fifty-nine, he had a stroke of apoplexy. Thereafter he lived 
in utter dread. Detested by the nobility and by the country 
people, in constant terror of conspiracy, he remained shut up in 
his castle of Plessis-les-Tours. Surrounding himself with astrol- 
ogers and physicians, he sent rich presents to the most venerable 
churches, and had relics brought to him from every corner of 
Christendom. He had summoned to him from Calabria a hermit 
called Saint Francis de Paule, who was celebrated for his miracles, 
and implored him to prolong his life; but when it became evident 
that there was no longer any hope, and that he must die, he 
turned a brave face to death, he sent for the Dauphin, gave him 



THE ARMY UNDER LOUIS XI 201 

profound advice, received the sacraments of the Church, and died 
August 30th, 1483, in his sixty-first year. 

21. The Aggrandizement of the Royal Domain. — His 
reign, so troubled, and so unhappy for the people, had neverthe- 
less contributed pow^erfully to the aggrandizement of the royal 
domain. Apart from the provinces acquired by the treaty of 
Arras, Louis XI had induced Rene of Anjou to cede to him Maine, 
Anjou, and Provence, which were definitely joined to the crown 
after the death of Charles of Maine. At the time of the king's 
death he had increased the domain by the addition of five im- 
portant provinces and by a multitude of small fiefs. He had 
extended the kingdom to the eastern Pyrenees, to the Maritime 
Alps, to the Jura, and had taken a long step toward the conquest 
of the natural boundaries of France. 

22. The Army Under Louis XI. — Louis XI was not con- 
tent with breaking the power of feudalism and with rounding 
out his domain only; he also devoted himself to organizing the 
monarchical power, and to the development of the institutions 
which had marked the reign of Charles VII. Endowed with a 
prodigious activity, he wished to see everything for himself, and 
often visited the provinces in person. The Estates General he 
summoned only once, in 1468, but he frequently had recourse to 
the Assembly of Notables. Like Charles VII, he wished to give 
to the monarchy a powerful instrument to be used when the 
time came for action, and to this end he continued the organization 
of the army. By the ordinance of 1467, he reorganized the 
military companies, which the marshals of France had to review 
every three months, and who were lodged with private citizens. 
He established a rigorous discipline, made arrangements for the 
care of soldiers who had become sick or old in the service. By 
the ordinance of 1469 he perfected the militia of the tax-free 
archers, divided the realm into four great military divisions, which 
were placed under the command of captains general, and regu- 
lated the equipment and costume of the soldiers, whom he grouped 
as voulgers, lancers, archers, and crossbowmen; but the new in- 
stitution did not produce very happy results. Louis XI did not 
disband them as he is said to have done, but, as a matter of fact, 
he preferred foreign mercenaries, and enrolled a great number of 
Swiss, whose valor he had seen tested in the battle of Saint Jacque. 



202 LOUIS XI 

He reinforced his Scotch guard also, and kept constantly upon a 
war footing an army of fifty thousand men. Furthermore, he per- 
fected the artillery, created the military Order of Saint-Michel, 
and organized the marine, which played a remarkable rôle in the 
war of 1479. 

23. His Judicial, Financial, and Religious Policy. — He 
wished to attach the administration of justice firmly to the royal 
power, and forbade the Parlement to make use of the right of re- 
monstrance, but granted to it, on paper at least, the inviolability 
of its commands, declaring that its ordinances should be executed 
throughout the realm. Still he saw to it that justice was ad- 
ministered with regularity, and he did not substitute extraordi- 
nary judicial commissions for the ordinary judges except in great 
state trials where he feared that powerful criminals might escape 
just punishment for their crimes. " He desired with all his heart," 
says Comines, " to establish uniformity in the realm, and particu- 
larly in the matter of judicial proceedings; he desired as well 
that there should be a uniform system of laws, weights, and 
measures, and that all the laws should be recorded in a book 
and written in French, in order to avoid the rascality and pillaging 
of the lawyers " ; but he did not live long enough to accomplish 
these important reforms. 

The king, whom his contemporaries called *' the swallower-up 
of taxes," had constant need for money to carry out his gigantic 
enterprises; therefore he very materially increased the burden of 
taxation. In ecclesiastical matters, he annulled the Pragmatic 
Sanction of Charles VII that he might obtain the support of the 
pope, and the Concordat of 1472 was an agreement between the 
king, the pope, and the supporters of the Pragmatic Sanction, but 
it did not entirely satisfy any of the parties. 

24. Commerce and Industry. — Bourgeois in his morals, 
habits, speech, and dress, Louis XI surrounded himself with the 
people of the middle class, knowing that he would find among 
them more sense and more loyalty. He devoted himself to the 
development of the prosperity of the realm by every possible 
means, and had agents everywhere, in England, in Germany, and 
in Italy, to collect information for him concerning the laws and 
the products of those countries. He multiplied his relations with 
the great nations of Europe, signed with them treaties of com- 



CONCLUSION 203 

merce, encouraged domestic commerce and industry, and developed 
in France new sources of wealth, while at the same time he 
established fairs at Bayonne, at Caen, and gave a particular impetus 
to the fairs of Lyons. The pursuit of brigands and vagabonds he 
had organized by his hangman and crony Tristan, while the crea- 
tion of a relay post for every four leagues, which was placed under 
the direction of the master of the couriers of France, prepared 
the way for a revolution which Louis XI perhaps foresaw, but 
which he was never able to accomplish. This post service was 
reserved for carrying the letters of the king and of the princes of 
the blood; private citizens could not use it. The king spared no 
pains in reviving the merchant marine, and in restoring to the 
French ports the activity which they had had in the XIV century. 
He permitted nobles to engage in trade without the loss of their 
title of nobility, attempted to acclimatize the silk industry at 
Lyons and at Tours; had skilled workmen brought from Venice, 
from Genoa, and from Florence, and gave to the exploitation of 
the mines an activity which up to this time had been unknown. 
Not content with this he occupied himself also in domiciling in 
France industries for the production of articles of luxury, tapes- 
tries, embroideries, and porcelain-ware; and he confirmed and 
extended the privileges of the towns, often permitting them to 
elect their own magistrates and to organize their own companies 
and their corporations. 

25. Conclusion. — Such was the work of Louis XI. Accom- 
plished with an unflinching determination that saw the end and 
was indifferent to the means chosen, it weighed heavily upon the 
generations who were at the same time its victims and its instru- 
ments. The king died, an object of hatred to the aristocracy 
whom he had crushed, to the people whose life he had made hard, 
and to the middle class who had served him more than he had 
served them. The country, exhausted by this oppressive govern- 
ment, saw only the present grievances without perceiving in the 
future the prosperity for which he had prepared the way; but 
history renders a more just estimate of the excellencies of the 
reign, and its shortcomings, for Louis XI had worked powerfully 
for the unity of France. 



CHAPTER XIV 
FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY 

1. Accession of Charles VIII (1483-1498.)— Louis XI left 
the crown to his young son, Charles VIII, then thirteen years of 
age. By the terms of the famous ordinance of Charles V, the new 
king was no longer a minor, and there was, therefore, no reason 
for establishing a regency; but the little prince with his slender 
body, his thick shoulders, and his large head, appeared to be pos- 
sessed of mediocre intelligence only, and Louis XI, upon his 
deathbed, had intrusted the guardianship of the young king to his 
daughter Anne, the wife of Pierre de Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu, 
whose energy and political sagacity he had recognized. " She is 
the least foolish woman in the world, for," he said, " there are 
no wise ones." She demonstrated the soundness of his judgment 
by pursuing with admirable sagacity the great projects of her 
father, and one of her contemporaries said of her, " She is worthy 
of the throne herself because of her prudence and her courage." 

It was inevitable that intrigues should be immediately set upon 
foot to take from the Beaujeus the charge which gave them the 
upper hand in the affairs of state. The natural rival of Anne 
of Beaujeu was Duke Louis of Orléans, first prince of the blood, 
a grandson of Valentine Visconti and at that time twenty-one 
years old. Repressed during his early youth under the iron hand 
of the terrible Louis XI and obliged to marry Jeanne of France, 
who, while sweet and good, was nevertheless without beauty and 
slightly hunchbacked, he demanded for himself the control of 
affairs. 

All the barons whom Louis XI had so roughly struck down, now 
raised their heads, had their confiscated possessions returned to 
them, and obtained positions and pensions. On the other hand the 
ministers identified with the repressions of the last reign fared 
badly. Oliver le Daim was hanged on the gallows at Mont- 

204 



THE ESTATES GENERAL AT TOURS IN 1484 205 

faucon ; John Doyat, Procureur General of the Parlement of Paris 
was whipped in the Place de Grève, had his ears cut off, and 
was banished from the realm. The physician Coictier had to re- 
store fifty thousand pounds, his titles, and his castles; but public 
opinion demanded more than the punishment of a few miserable 
men. The party of the princes and the party of the Beaujeu found 
themselves in agreement as to the desirability of calling together 
the Estates General in order to determine the composition of the 
Council of Regency, and the Estates were summoned forth- 
with. 

2. The Estates General at Tours in 1484. — The assembly 
which met at Tours January 5th, 1484, occupies a remarkable 
place in French history. The royal summons had prescribed to 
its agents the power of having three deputies elected from each 
bailiwick and each sénéchaussée, one for the clergy, one for the 
nobility, and one for the Third Estate. Thus, for the first time 
the rural population was called upon to vote and to take part in 
public life. In the assembly, the deputies, instead of voting by 
orders, voted as individuals. They divided themselves into six 
committees which corresponded roughly to six territorial divisions: 
France, Burgundy, Normandy, Aquitaine, the Langue d'Oc, and 
the Langue d'Oïl. 

On the 15th of January the opening session was held in the 
great hall of the archbishop of Tours, where the king sat upon a 
platform surrounded by the princes of the blood and the ecclesias- 
tical peers. The Chancellor, William of Rochefort, opened the 
session in a flowery speech, full of citations from the poets and the 
Latin historians, and containing magnificent promises of reform. 

A prolonged debate thereupon arose upon matters of very great 
importance. What form should the government of the realm 
take up to the time when the king should assume the direction 
of affairs? How was his Council to be composed? What was 
the nature of the power of the Estates? The Orléans faction 
maintained the position that this power reverted to the princes of 
the blood, and not to the assembly. These pretensions of the 
princes of the blood aroused the deputies. Philip Pot, Grand 
Marshal of Burgundy, made an eloquent and vigorous plea in 
favor of the rights of the nation. He took the position that 
royalty is a dignity, and not the property of the prince, that in 



2o6 FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY 

the beginning the sovereign people created the king by their con- 
sent, that princes are not clothed with immense power in order 
to enrich themselves at the expense of the people, but in order 
to enrich the state and to guide it to better destiny. " The state," 
he cried, " is an affair of the people. If this is true, how can 
the people abandon the responsibility for it? How is it possible 
to attribute sovereignty to a prince who exists himself only by 
the people? Moreover, what power in France has the right to 
regulate the progress of affairs, when the king is incapable of 
governing? Evidently, that responsibility reverts neither to the 
princes, nor to a Council of the princes, but to the people, the 
granters of that power. It does not have the right to rule, but 
mark this well, it has the right of administering the realm through 
those whom he has elected. I call ' people ' not only the villains and 
the commons, but all men of each order, to such point that under 
the name of the Estates General I understand even the princes. 
. . . Thus you, deputies of the three Estates, you are the de- 
positors of the will of all. . . . Why, then, do you fear to organize 
the government?" 

These were bold innovations for the contemporaries of Louis 
XI, but after a prolonged and confused discussion the Estates 
concerned themselves only with obtaining material advantages. 
They did not attempt to lay their hands upon that sovereignty 
which they had claimed, and there was no occasion for a regent, 
since the king himself presided at the councils and signed the 
ordinances. In his absence, the presidency belonged to the duke 
of Orléans, then to the duke of Bourbon, and then to the Sire 
de Beaujeu. Anne continued to be responsible for the guardian- 
ship and the education of the king. Thus she remained the real 
master of the situation. The Estates then proceeded to the read- 
ing of the general list of demands, which they divided into five 
headings: the Clergy, the Nobility, the Third Estate, Justice, and 
Merchandise. The Church required, first of all, the re-establish- 
ment of the Pragmatic Sanction and the maintenance of ecclesias- 
tical immunities, the nobility the suppression of the ordinances of 
Louis XI upon the chase, the Third Estate the diminution of the 
taxes, the reduction of pensions and of paid troops, the curtailing 
of the expenses of justice, the compilation of the laws, the sup- 
pression of toll-houses, a limiting of the rights of the customs 



THE FRENCH ACQUISITION OF BRITTANY 207 

duties, and the maintenance of all roads at the expense of the 
royal treasury. But when the Estates voted subsidies to the 
amount of one million two hundred thousand livres, the govern- 
ment no longer cared to be troubled with them. The king left 
the assembly, and the Chancellor dismissed the deputies on the 
14th of March. Thus ended without important results the 
Estates General of 1484, an assembly which lacked the spirit of 
initiative and of action and which realized neither the aim of 
those who had called it together, nor the apprehensions of the 
opposed party. 

3. The " Fools' War " (1485-1488).— The duke of Orléans, 
furious at seeing the power in the hands of Anne of Beaujeu, 
allied himself with the discontented nobles, and organized a new 
League of the Public Weal. He barely escaped arrest by the 
royal troops and took flight to Alençon, then made his submission ; 
but he did not hesitate to renew his intrigues. He now drew into 
his party Maximilian of Austria, among others, and Richard III 
of England. Anne understood perfectly how to meet this " Fools' 
War," as it was called, in a manner worthy of the daughter of 
Louis XL She at once supported Henry of Richmond against 
Richard III and roused his Flemish subjects against Maximilian. 
One division of the royal army checked Maximilian in Artois 
while another marched against the duke of Brittany. The Bretons 
were decisively beaten, and Francis II concluded a treaty (1488) 
by the terms of which he surrendered several towns in Brittany, 
and promised that his daughter Anne should not marry without 
the consent of the king of France. 

4. The French Acquisition of Brittany (1491).— Three 
weeks after this treaty the duke of Brittany died, leaving only 
two daughters, Anne and Isabella. The occasion was an excel- 
lent one for annexing to the royal domain this important province 
which by its origin and its history was entirely distinct from the 
rest of the monarchy. " The Duchy of Brittany was less a fief 
of the crown of France than a subordinate state, an ally rather 
than a vassal." Like the king of France, the duke had his em- 
bassadors, his vassals, his great officers, his court, and his Parle- 
ment, and these distinctions were both a menace and danger to 
France. There was but one way to meet this perpetual peril ; that 
was to unite the province to the royal domain. Many suitors as- 



2o8 FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY 

pired to the hand of Anne of Brittany, the heiress of Francis II, but 
Anne of Beaujeu resolved to make use of every means to prevent 
the heritage and the heiress from escaping the control of France. 
She asserted the right of wardship over the duchess, had the right 
of female succession in Brittany contested by her lavi^yers, and sent 
an army into the duchy. Anne of Brittany, on the other hand, 
resolved at all cost to maintain her independence, and consented 
to marry Maximilian, the King of the Romans, by proxy, it is 
true, because he was kept in Germany by a war against the Hun- 
garians. When Anne of Beaujeu refused to recognize this mar- 
riage, the French army took possession of Nantes, and laid siege 
to Rennes. The French envoys adroitly pointed out to the young 
duchess that it was much better to give her hand to the king of 
France than to a prince who was both poor and a foreigner, but 
it was the intervention of her confessor which finally overcame 
her reluctance, and she consented to marry Charles VIII. The 
contract was signed at Langeais, December 6th, 1491; in it the 
king and the duchess made a mutual cession of their rights upon 
Brittany, and if the king died without issue, his widow might 
not marry any one but his successor, or the nearest heir to the 
throne. The marriage was solemnized the same day. Charles 
VIII was twenty-one, Anne of Brittany was fifteen. From this 
time on Brittany was joined to the realm of France, with which 
it was definitely incorporated in 1532. This settlement was for- 
tunate for France, which could not tolerate upon a corner of her 
territory a small state too often disposed to call in the foreigner, 
and advantageous at the same time to Brittany, which won by this 
union interior peace, and escaped the dangerous protection of 
England. Following upon this decisive action, Anne of Beaujeu 
abandoned the power to her brother, and henceforth withdrew to 
her estates. 

5. Italian Plans of Charles. — With Charles VIII there be- 
gan the epoch of the Italian wars. Called into the Peninsula to 
defend their claims, and by the intestine dissensions of the coun- 
try, the French kings made several brilliant expeditions to the 
other side of the mountains. If these wars resulted in no territorial 
aggrandizement for France, they nevertheless developed her diplo- 
macy and her military institutions, brought France into contact 
with a brilliant civilization, and gave impetus to the French 



CHARLES VIII IN ITALY 209 

Renaissance. The puny king of France, for a long time had 
cherished the desire of crossing the Alps, and dreamed of subduing 
the Orient like a second Alexander. He hoped to begin by 
establishing his claims upon the kingdom of Naples, which he 
derived from the house of Anjou. Then he would march to the 
Holy Land. It was in vain that the old counselors of Louis XI 
pointed out to him the danger which he would experience in 
invading Italy. The court favorites, notwithstanding this, were 
burning to cross the mountains. 

6. The Treaties of Étaples, Narbonne, and Senlis (1492- 
1493). — Besides this, Italy herself had imprudently spurred on 
the ambition of the young king. Stripped of her ancient grandeur, 
she was the prey of a thousand internal rivalries, and solicited 
the help of the foreigner. Ludovico the Moor, having over- 
thrown his nephew, Gian Galeazzo, called upon the king of 
France and promised to help him to conquer Naples. Besides 
this, Charles VIII received urgent requests from the marquis of 
Saluzzo, Savonarola, the eloquent monk who governed Florence, 
the Neapolitan barons, and the cardinals who were enemies of 
Alexander VI. The king no longer hesitated; but before adven- 
turing himself upon the other side of the Alps, he had to dispose 
of a coalition which was formed between the kings of England 
and Aragon, and Maximilian of Austria. He signed the treaty 
of Etaples with Henry VII of England, and promised him seven 
hundred and forty-five thousand crowns of gold. He yielded to 
Ferdinand the Catholic Roussillon and Cerdagne, which had been 
held by the French since the time of Louis XL This was by the 
treaty of Narbonne. He restored to Maximilian the dower of 
his daughter, Margaret — that is to say, Artois, Franche-Comté, and 
Charolais — by the treaty of Senlis. Having done this he could 
now realize his dreams of Italian conquest. 

7. Charles VIII in Italy. — He assembled at Lyons an army 
of sixty thousand men, French and mercenaries. A magnificent 
artillery composed of bronze cannon, which hurled iron cannon 
balls, assured to the French army a gr?at superiority, while famous 
leaders crowded around the king. 

The king of Naples, Ferdinand, had sent two armies, one toward 
Pisa, the other toward Ferrara, to guard the approaches to the 
Italian peninsula. In the meantime the duke of Orléans gathered 



2IO FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY 

together some ships and beat the enemy at Rapallo, where the 
conquerors gave no quarter to the vanquished, and a terror seized 
upon Italy, habituated as it was to the harmless passages-at-arms 
of the condottieri. During this time Charles VIII advanced by 
way of Grenoble and Mont Genèvre. With dancing and merry- 
making at Turin, he entered Milan, but refused to disturb 
Ludovico the Moor, who, several days after his departure, poisoned 
his nephew, Gian Galeazzo. Piero (II) de' Medici, conquered 
by the party of Savonarola, had called in the French, believing 
that he could save his estates by furnishing a passage to Charles 
VIII, who was crossing the defile of Pontre-Moli, and to this end 
ceded to him several fortified places in Italy. The indignant 
Florentines drove Piero out, however, and Savonarola con- 
ducted the young king into the city along streets garlanded with 
fragrant flowers and draped with flags adorned with the fleur-de- 
lis; but when the king attempted to levy a contribution upon the 
city, the Gonfalonier Pietro Capponni exclaimed boldly, " Sound 
your drums, and we will ring our bells! " Fearing what a con- 
flict might mean in the narrow streets of Florence, the king 
moderated his demands, and withdrew after signing a treaty with 
the people of the city. 

8. Charles VIII at Rome (1494).— From Florence Charles 
VIII directed his course to Rome. The cardinals and the nobles, 
enemies of the pope, Alexander VI, opened the gates of the city 
to him, and upon the night of December 31st, while the Neapoli- 
tan troops left Rome by the San Sebastian gate, the king of 
France made a formal entry by the Santa Maria del Populo on 
horseback, completely armed, with a lance upon his thigh. The 
pope withdrew to the Castle of San Angelo, while the cardinals 
prayed the conqueror to summon a Church Council and to depose 
''the criminal who defiles the apostolic throne"; but Charles 
VIII consented to open negotiations with the pope, and a treaty 
was signed. Alexander VI promised to the king the investiture of 
the kingdom of Naples, and gave him the right of placing garri- 
sons in several of the papal cities. He gave him as hostages Caesar 
Borgia and Prince Djem, brother of the sultan Bajazet, who was 
to be useful in the plans of Charles VIII in the Orient. The 
king of France, without any misgiving, took leave of the pope, who 
had just called him his " dear son," and without any suspicion 



RETREAT OF CHARLES VIII FROM ITALY 211 

that he was perhaps his dupe. Some days later Caesar Borgia 
escaped from the French camp, and Djem suddenly died. 

9. Conquest of the Realm of Naples (1495). — The terri- 
fied new king of Naples, Alphonso II, who had just succeeded 
Ferdinand, no longer wished to guard " that thorny crown when 
the very trees and rocks cried out * France.' " He abdicated in 
favor of his son, Ferdinand II, and withdrew to Sicily. Ferdi- 
nand in vain attempted to defend himself, but betrayed by his 
condottieri and by the famous Trivulsa, he had to return to 
Naples. The city then revolted, and this unhappy prince, too, was 
obliged to take flight to Sicily. Charles entered Naples on the 
22d of February. '* Never," says Comines, " have a people shown 
such affection for a king or for a nation as they showed to the 
king of France, for they thought they were now free from all 
tyranny." In the midst of the noisy acclamations of the enthusi- 
astic people, Charles VIII upon his horse, under a canopy of 
cloth of gold carried by four nobles, clothed in the imperial pur- 
ple with a scepter in one hand and a globe of gold in the other, 
proceeded to the cathedral to render thanks to God. Some weeks 
later nearly all the strongholds in the kingdom of Naples had 
surrendered to the French. This rapid conquest intoxicated the 
king. More fortunate than Caesar, he had conquered even before 
he had seen. 

10. The Retreat of Charles VIII from Italy (1495).— 
Charles soon laid aside all prudence. Caring only for his 
pleasure, he lavished his favors and dignities upon courtesans and 
his captains, and irritated the Neapolitans by the violence and 
caprice which he displayed toward them. " It did not seem to us 
at all that the Italians were men," said Comines; but two months 
later a letter from this same Comines, his ambassador at Venice, 
warned him of a formidable plot which had been formed against 
him. For Alexander VI, the republic of Venice, Ludovico the 
Moor, the emperor Maximilian, and Ferdinand of Aragon, were 
planning to close to him the road to France. The danger was in- 
deed great, since forty thousand Italians had gathered in the valley 
of the Po. The king thereupon left eleven thousand men to Gilbert 
de Montpensier, whom he named Viceroy, and on the 20th of 
May he left Naples. Proceeding by way of Rome and Florence, 
he stationed garrisons at Siena and at Pisa, and crossed the pass 



212 FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY 

of Pontre-Moli only with great difficulty. Forty thousand men 
under the marquis of Mantua and San Severino were awaiting 
the ten thousand French in the valley of the Taro, near Fornovo, 
where, attacked in the front and in the rear, Charles VIII hurled 
himself impetuously upon the enemy, killed three thousand men, 
and thus opened up the way to France (July, 1495). He re- 
crossed by way of Briançon, after relieving the duke of Orléans at 
Novara. 

In the realm of Naples, Ferdinand II, supported by the Spanish 
army of Gonsalvo de Cordova, now assumed the offensive. In 
vain the French were victors at Seminara and at Eboli. The 
indolent Montpensier lost Naples and surrendered at Atella, and 
Stuart d'Aubigny had to lead back to France all that was left 
of the French army. 

11. His Death (April 7th, 1498).— While Italy was begin- 
ning again its domestic struggles, and the emperor Maximilian was 
uselessly marching against the Florentines, while war continued 
between the popes and the barons of the Romagna, while Florence 
was torn by dissensions, and Savonarola was perishing upon the 
scaffold, Charles VIII dreamed of resuming his work on the other 
side of the mountains; but he died as the result of an accident 
at Amboise castle. With him ended the direct line of the Valois 
kings, which had lasted one hundred and seventy years, and had 
given seven kings to France. 

12. Accession of Louis XII (1498-1515).— Charles VIII 
died without issue. The heir to the crown was Duke Louis (II) 
of Orléans, the grandson of Louis of Orléans and Valentine Vis- 
conti, and son of the poet Charles of Orléans. Already thirty- 
six years of age, brave and chivalrous, the former leader of the 
" Fools' War " brought to the throne a deep spirit of justice and 
moderation. Though having no exceptional qualities, he knew 
how to win the affection of his subjects by his goodness and his 
kindliness, and gained popularity by diminishing the taille and 
by suppressing the donation made upon the occasion of his *' joy- 
ous accession." He trusted the management of important affairs 
to his former enemy, Trémoille, and to the servitors of Charles 
VIII, responding to the deputies of Orléans that it was " not 
fitting nor to the honor of the King of France to avenge the quar- 
rels, indignities, and hostilities shown to the Duke of Orléans." 



LOUIS XII IN MILAN ^13 

He displayed great kindness to the towns, promised to alleviate 
the lot of the poor, and repressed the pillage and violence which 
was habitually committed by the soldiers. Likewise he called to 
the management of affairs his best friend, George of Amboise, 
Archbishop of Rouen, who well deserved the name of " the friend 
of the people." At the outset his attention was taken up with 
a weighty matter. After the death of Charles VIII, Anne of 
Brittany had withdrawn to her duchy, and had florins of gold 
struck off, upon which she was represented as both queen and 
duchess. It was imperative to prevent the duchy's falling into 
the hands of a foreign house, but Louis XII had married, accord- 
ing to agreement, the daughter of Louis XI, Jeanne of France, 
who had not given birth to any children. He, therefore, demanded 
and obtained his divorce from Pope Alexander VI, and imme- 
diately betook himself to Brittany, where he married the widow of 
Charles VIII three weeks afterwards. The marriage contract, 
signed on the 7th of January, 1499, was less advantageous for 
France than the former treaty ; it stipulated for the administrative 
independence of the duchy, and assured to it a separate dynasty. 
His new wife almost at once secured an ascendency over the 
king's mind and used her influence, not always for the interest 
of France. Endowed with a superior intelligence and with a culti- 
vated mind, Anne surrounded herself with a veritable court, en- 
couraged men of genius, and well merited the appellation given to 
her by Brantôme, " the true mother of the poor, the supporter of 
gentility, and the refuge of scholars." During this time the un- 
fortunate Jeanne of France left the world and withdrew to 
Bourges, where she founded the convent of the religious order of 
the Annunciada. 

13. Louis XII in Milan (1499-1500).— To the rights upon 
the kingdom of Naples which he held from Charles VIII, Louis 
XII joined his claims upon the duchy of Milan, and these he 
resolved to enforce. He renewed the alliance of France with 
England, Spain, and Archduke Philip, and came to terms with 
Pope Alexander VI and the republics of Florence and Venice. In 
the month of August, 1499, an army of twenty-four thousand men 
crossed the Alps. Ludovico the Moor, abandoned by every one, 
took flight into the Tyrol, and the duchy was conquered in three 
weeks by the French. The king then made a triumphal entry 



214 FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY 

into Milan, where he established a Parlement upon the model 
of the sovereign court of France, and, once in power, he reduced 
the taxes, lavished favors upon scholars and artists, and founded 
chairs of theology, law, and medicine; but the government of the 
condottiere, Trivulsa, alienated every one by his violence, and 
Ludovico only had to appear at the head of a Swiss army to 
drive out the French in January, 1500. A new French army 
then crossed the Alps and marched against the Moor. The armies 
met near Novara. Won over by French gold, the Swiss mer- 
cenaries of the duke of Milan surrendered him to Louis XII, who 
sent him as a prisoner to the Château of Loches. The duchy of 
Milan returned to the hands of the king of France, who intrusted 
its government to Chaumont of Amboise, nephew of the cardinal, 
and extended liberal pardons to his enemies. 

14. The Conquest and Loss of the Kingdom of Naples 
(1500-1504). — The duchy of Milan once occupied, Louis XII 
gave his attention to taking possession of the kingdom of Naples. 
In place of listening to the proposals of Frederick, the uncle and 
successor of Ferdinand II, he began an active diplomatic cam- 
paign against him. To assure himself of the support of the 
Florentines he gave them aid against Pisa, whose inhabitants fought 
with the cry of ''Vive la France!" He sent four hundred 
lances to the services of Caesar Borgia, who dreamed of making 
of the Romagna a powerful principality, and who was ridding 
himself by violence of the " tyrants " of the province. The chief 
obstacle to the designs of the king of France came from Ferdi- 
nand, the king of Spain, who likewise coveted the kingdom 
of Naples. The two rivals signed the secret treaty of Granada 
(November, 1500), an agreement which was full of dangers, dis- 
cords, and treasons, infamous upon the part of Ferdinand and of 
little advantage or honor to his ally. By its terms Louis was to 
have the northern part of the kingdom and the king of Spain the 
southern. King Frederick was miserably betrayed by the Spanish 
captain, Gonsalvo de Cordova, who induced him to yield several 
gates in order the better to defend them, and then the Spaniard 
opened them to the French. The unfortunate king of Naples 
surrendered to Louis XII, who gave him the duchy of Maine. 
Discord soon broke out between the French and the Spanish, 
however, and, hostilities were precipitated by a dispute concerning 



THE TREATIES OF BLOIS 215 

the impost of two hundred thousand ducats paid by the flocks of 
sheep which passed the summer in the pastures of the Abruzzi 
and the winter in the plains of Apulia. The French viceroy, 
the duke of Nemours, at first obtained the advantage and blockaded 
Gonsalvo in Barletta; but Ferdinand had recourse to his cus- 
tomary subtlety, opened up negotiations with Louis XII, and 
signed with him the treaty of Lyons. While the French loyally 
suspended hostilities, Gonsalvo received important reinforcements, 
and then fell upon his adversaries. He defeated them at Semi- 
nara and at Cerignola, and did not leave them any possessions 
except the fortress of Gaëta in 1503. Immediately Louis XII 
sent a new army into Italy commanded by Tremoille ; but he was 
entangled in the Romagna, where he attempted in vain to make 
Cardinal Amboise the successor of Alexander VI, and he was 
unable to prevent the election, first of Pius III, and then of 
Julius II. The French, now under the command of the marquis 
of Mantua, resumed their march upon Naples; but Gonsalvo 
captured their artillery while they were crossing the Garigliano, in 
spite of the heroism of Bayard, who held the bridge alone against 
numerous adversaries, and the remains of the army took refuge 
in Gaëta, which was obliged to surrender (January ist, 1504). 
Only Louis d'Ars, who commanded at Venosa, refused to sur- 
render, and he himself opened up the road to France. 

15. The Treaties of Blois (1504-1505).— Louis XII at- 
tempted to repair these disasters by means of diplomacy. Un- 
happily, he was under the influence of Anne of Brittany, who 
preferred her own domestic interests to those of the realm. She 
profited by a spell of sickness of the king to induce him to sign 
the treaties of Blois. They abandoned Naples to Spain, guaran- 
teed to Louis XII the duchy of Milan of which the emperor 
Maximilian was to give him the investiture upon condition of a 
secret alliance against Venice, and the agreement to the marriage 
of Claude of France, daughter of the king of France, to Charles of 
Austria, later the emperor Charles V, grandson of Maximilian. 
Her dower was to be the duchies of Brittany, Burgundy, and 
Milan. This agreement was both disastrous and dishonoring. 
For the sake of making her daughter an empress, Anne consented 
to give up her country to a child who " centralized in his cradle 
the half of Europe." Fortunately, the king of Spain had just 



2i6 FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY 

embroiled himself with his son-in-law, Philip the Handsome. 
Ferdinand, thereupon, came to terms with Louis XII and signed 
with him a further treaty of Blois by which he agreed to marry 
Germaine de Foix, niece of the king of France, who was to bring 
as her dower the claims of France upon the kingdom of Naples. 
This was the beginning of a breach between the two monarchs. 
Furthermore, Cardinal Amboise opened the king's eyes to the ills 
which the proposed marriage of Claude of France with the young 
archduke was preparing for the French crown. The king, who 
was very sick, thereupon gave up the whole matter. The cardinal 
freed him from his oath, and in order to make sure of the support 
of the nation, he summoned the Estates General at Tours, May 
loth, 1506. The assembly thanked the sovereign for his wise 
administration of affairs, and demanded the breaking off of the 
treaties of Blois and the marriage of Claude of France with her 
cousin, Francis of Angoulême, heir-presumptive to the crown. The 
ceremony of betrothal was immediately carried out, and the Aus- 
trian marriage project was thus abandoned. 

16. The Submission of Genoa to France (1507). — War, it 
was feared, would soon break out. Luckily Ferdinand was obliged 
to put down an insurrection in Castile, and Maximilian was, as 
usual, short of money. Thus Louis was able to proceed against 
the republic of Genoa, which had revolted from his rule. Torn 
by factions the city had everywhere thrown down the fleur-de-lis 
and had chosen as Doge the dyer, Paul of Novi. Louis XII 
marched against the rebels at the head of an army of fifty thou- 
sand men. The city was obliged to surrender and Louis made a 
formal entry with a drawn sword in his hand. He pardoned the 
inhabitants, but had the Doge and sixty citizens put to death. 
The charters, laws, and statutes of the republic were burned by 
the hangman; the seigneuries of Genoa, with Corsica, Chio, and 
all their dependencies, were annexed to the royal domain. The 
Genoese further paid two hundred thousand crowns fine, and con- 
sented to build at their own expense the fortress of Briglia, which 
was to hold them in subjection. 

17. The League of Cambrai Against Venice (1508). — The 
new pope Julius II owed his fortune to Pope Sixtus IV, his uncle. 
Officially a churchman, Julius was by temperament a man of 
affairs to whom the helmet and the breastplate were more suited 



THE HUMILIATION OF VENICE 217 

than the cardinal's purple. He dreamed of reconstructing the 
temporal power of the Papacy, of driving out the barbarians from 
Italy, of fighting with temporal arms, and " of casting aside the 
keys of Saint Peter in order to seize the sword of Saint Paul." 
Mignet says that he ascended the pontifical throne with the 
spirit of a statesman, the ambition of a conqueror, the courage of 
a soldier, and the patriotism of an Italian. First of all he wished 
to assert his authority in the Papal States, where Caesar Borgia 
was still to be dreaded. Caesar was obliged to take flight and 
perished obscurely in the siege of a small town in Navarre. Then 
Julius II laid his hand upon several of the cities of the Romagna: 
Urbino, Perugia, and Bologna. In order to drive the Venetians 
out of this country, he organized against them the League of 
Cambrai, and turned to that purpose the jealousy and general 
fear which the republic of Venice excited throughout Europe. 
Louis XII and the king of Aragon, the emperor Maximilian, the 
dukes of Ferrara and of Savoy, the king of Hungary, and the 
marquis of Mantua all joined the pope against Venice. 

18. The Humiliation of Venice (1509).— While Julius II 
was thundering his excommunications against Venice, Louis XII 
engaged himself to attack in person the Venetian State. If we 
can believe the historian, Guicciardini, Louis assured the ambassa- 
dor of the Venetian republic that he would permit nothing which 
could arise to injure his former allies. The king, so honest and 
loyal in his own government, showed himself in quite another 
character on the other side of the Alps ; he opposed to the Italians 
there the trickery and duplicity which they had so often employed 
against him. At the head of an army of thirty-two thousand men, 
he crossed the Adda and met the Venetian army at Agnadel, but 
the two condottieri who commanded it could not agree. As for 
Louis XII, he showed brilliant valor. " Whoever is afraid," he 
cried, *' let him get behind me; no real king of France was ever 
killed by a cannon ball." The French won the battle. Six 
thousand adventurers were killed, and the rest put to flight. In 
a fortnight Louis conquered the whole of the country situated 
between the Adda and Lake Garda. All the enemies of Venice 
at once hurled themselves upon their prey. The republic, in 
despair of being able to defend its possessions on the mainland, 
bound its subjects by an oath of fealty, and then in the lagoons 



2i8 FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY 

awaited what discord might accomplish among the confed- 
erates. 

19. Character of Louis XII. — If the foreign policy of Louis 
XII had resulted in failure, the king was nevertheless beloved, 
This prince, so just and so humane, well merited the name of 
" father of his people," which the Estates General of Tours had 
given him. He preferred, he said, to see his courtiers laugh at 
his avarice, rather than to see the people weep at his extravagances. 
He freed the peasants from the pillaging of the soldiers, encour- 
aged agriculture, favored commerce, established two new Parle- 
ments, one at Provence, the other in Normandy, had collected and 
published a great number of laws, and was the patron of the 
arts and letters. Thus one understands the love that France long 
preserved for *' the good King Louis XII." 

20. Julius II Against the French (1511).— Julius II had 
now obtained his desires. Having been served by those whom he 
called the " barbarians," he planned to drive them out of the 
peninsula, and resolved to begin with the French, whose enemies 
he sought throughout Europe. He withdrew the anathemas which 
he had hurled against Venice, and cemented his alliance with 
Ferdinand the Catholic, to whom he accorded the investiture of 
the kingdom of Naples ; made every use of the irritation of the Swiss 
against Louis XII, lavished praise upon these brave and avaricious 
mercenaries by giving them the title of " defenders of the Church," 
and distributed among them large sums of money at the hand of 
the bishop of Sion, Mathias Schinner, who went up and down the 
Swiss Cantons preaching a crusade against France. He had the 
cities of Ferrara and Genoa, allies of France, attacked by their 
enemies. Louis XII, irritated, did not dare, nevertheless, to de- 
clare a war on the pope. He had just lost his resolute counselor, 
George of Amboise, and he gave great heed to the scruples of 
Anne of Brittany, who feared to lose her soul by taking up arms 
against the Holy See. The king convoked at Tours an assembly 
of French bishops, who declared void the censures pronounced by 
the pope, and authorized him to repulse these attacks by force. 
Julius II had taken the offensive and had entered Mirandola by 
being drawn up in a basket through a breach in the wall, but the 
French army surprised the pope before Bologna. Bayard won 
at Bastida, and compelled the pope's army to withdraw into 



FRENCH REVERSES. THE LOSS OF ITALY 219 

Ravenna, while the Bolognese opened their gates to the French 
and broke up the great bronze statue which Michael Angelo had 
cast of Julius II, representing the pontiff with a sword in his 
hand and a cuirass on his back. It would have been easy for 
Louis XII to occupy the Romagna, but he checked his army and 
called a General Council at Pisa to depose Julius II. This was 
a blunder by which Julius II immediately profited. He placed 
an interdict upon the territory of Pisa, excommunicated the dis- 
sident cardinals, and convoked a council at Saint John Lateran to 
defend the threatened Church. The pope then organized the 
Holy League, to which were joined Ferdinand, the Swiss, Venice, 
and Henry VIII of England. 

2L Exploits of Gaston de Foix in Italy (1512). — Louis 
XII intrusted the command of his army to his nephew, Gaston 
de Foix, Duke of Nemours. This hero of twenty-two years was to 
show himself a great captain in a rapid campaign of two months, 
" which was his entire life and his immortality." Having com- 
pelled the Swiss to evacuate the duchy of Milan, he hastened 
through terrific weather to deliver the citadel of Bologna, which 
Raj^mond of Cordova and Pedro Navarro were then besieging. 
The Spaniards had just taken Brescia by surprise; but Gaston 
hastened across flooded rivers, impassable roads, and setting an 
example to his Gascon and Picard foot soldiers, fighting bare- 
footed at the head of the column, took the town and gave it over 
to pillage. In the month of April he entered the Romagna, and 
laid siege to Ravenna, where a furious battle was fought under 
the walls of the city on Easter Day (1512). After an energetic 
resistance, the Spanish army was obliged to leave the field of 
battle, upon which there remained twelve thousand dead. Gaston, 
carried beyond his ordinary impetuosity, hurled himself in pur- 
suit, was surrounded, and fell, pierced by the enemies' pikes. Thus 
perished one who, according to Guicciardini, '* had been a great 
captain before he had been a soldier." " Judging from the mourn- 
ing in the army," wrote Bayard, " it would seem as if the French 
had lost the battle," and Louis XII in responding to those who 
complimented him upon the victory, said, " Let us wish for a like 
victory to our enemies." 

22. French Reverses. The Loss of Italy. — The French 
army passed over to the command of La Palice, who made many 



220 FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY 

blunders. Attacked at the same time by the Spaniards, the Swiss, 
and the emperor Maximilian, he was obliged to evacuate Milan, 
which was occupied by Maximilian Sforza. Pope Julius II, prior 
to his death in the month of January, 15 13, believed that his 
plans had been realized and that the barbarians had been driven 
out of Italy. His successor, Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici), con- 
tinued the designs of Julius, and cemented the alliance against 
France by the league of Malines. In 15 13, Louis XII made a new 
effort to reconquer the duchy of Milan. Tremoille and Trivulsa 
easily retook the duchy, but allowed themselves to be surprised 
and crushed by the Swiss at Novara. Thus Italy was lost a 
second time. 

23. The Treaty of London (1514).— The center of the 
coalition had been Leo X, but the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
while diplomatic and ambitious, had none of the formidable rough- 
ness nor the personal rancors which governed Julius II. He was 
reconciled with Louis XII, who gave up the duchy of Milan, and 
aided the king of France in making peace with the Swiss and the 
emperor ( 1514). Henry VIII, alone left in the field, finally signed 
the treaty of London, which gave to him Tournai and a pension 
of one hundred thousand crowns for ten years. 

24. Death of Louis XII. — Louis XII, who had just lost his 
wife, Anne of Brittany, married Princess Mary, sister of the 
king of England, but he died in a short time, January ist, 15 15, 
leaving only two daughters, Claude of France, the wife of Francis 
of Angouleme, who succeeded him, and Renée, who became the 
duchess of Ferrara. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE OTTOMAN TURKS IN EUROPE 

1. The Fall of the Latin Empire (1204-1260).— The Latin 
Empire of Constantinople, " The Romania," with Baldwin, Count 
of Flanders, as emperor in 1204, had been established as a result 
of the Fourth Crusade, but it rested on a very insecure foundation. 

The Byzantines, mistreated and despoiled by the Latin con- 
querors, despised the coarseness of their new masters, while at 
the same time the Latin principalities were further weakened by 
internal discord or feudal factional fights. Thanks to these con- 
ditions, the generation following its establishment saw the Latin 
Empire threatened by several Greek '' Empires " sprung from the 
ruins of the possessions of the great house of Comnenus. One of 
this family secured the independence of Epirus and Macedonia, 
another held Trebizond on the Black Sea, while Theodore I, 
Lascaris, established an Empire at Nicaea in Asia Minor, and his 
son-in-law, John Ducus (H), took possession of Adrianople and 
Salonica in the Balkan Peninsula. The Latin emperors were thus 
soon closely confined to their capital, surrounded on all sides by 
rebels or foreign foes. An illustrious Greek family, that of the 
Paleologi, had earlier married into the reigning family of Com- 
nenus. They now supplanted the family of Lascaris, and 
Michael Paleologus (VIII), in 1261, took Constantinople by 
surprise. Thus the Greeks were again in possession of their 
imperial city after the Latin Empire had lasted a little over 
half a century (i 204-1 261), a triumph which was the outcome of 
the profound hatred which the Greeks had always felt for the 
people and ideas of the Occident. Nevertheless, the islands of the 
Archipelago, Attica, and Morea remained for a long time under 
Latin rule. 

2. The Seljukian Turks in Asia Minor. — Just at this time' 
in 1260, the horsemen of the Seljukian Turks in the service of the 

221 



aâ2 THE OTTOMAN TURKS IN EUROPE 

Mohammedan Abassid kallfs had turned to their own profit the 
decline of the Arabians and had formed several principalities in 
Anatolia, the most important of which was that of Iconium. 
From Turkestan they had called in other hordes of the same origin 
tc their aid, and these tribes settled in the plain of Sangaras, in 
a village of tents, where they governed themselves according to 
Mussulman law and their domestic traditions, owing to the sultan 
of Iconium nothing but military service. 

3. Osman (Othman, 1258-1328.)— Their leader handed over 
his authority to his son Osman, and these Turkish soldiers of Osman, 
the Osmanli (Ottomans), were camped and intrenched around 
Nicaea, Nicomedia,,and Brusa, the eastern outpost of the Byzantine 
Empire. An opportune invasion of Mongol horsemen, in 1300, 
who struck a serious blow at the rule of the Seljukian Turks in 
Iconium now enabled Osman to assume the title of Padischah 
{pasha). He at once raised a holy war against the neighboring 
Greek Christians, possessed himself of the city of Brusa, and by 
this conquest over '' the infidel " became the first of the Mussul- 
man saints among the Osmanli. With Osman, Ottoman history 
may be said to have begun. 

4. Orcan (1329-1359) and the Turks.— After his death, 
Orcan, his son, assumed the command of the tribe. Conquering 
Nicomedia and Nicaea, he drove the Paleologi from Asia, inter- 
vened in their family affairs at Constantinople, and his son, Suli- 
man, set foot in Europe by his occupation of Gallipoli (1356). 
The government of Orcan marks the definite transition of the 
Turks from a nomad to a political life. They now had a capital, 
mosques, which were often established in churches, formerly 
orthodox, and schools for the study and explanation of the Koran. 
At this time they were violent and cruel as warriors and invaders, 
but relatively mild in their treatment of the vanquished after the 
conquest. Fanatical Mussulmans, yet capable of a certain amount 
of religious tolerance, and little fitted for regular occupation, save 
perhaps that of commerce, they were on a footing of absolute 
equality under the authority of the pashas, the first of whom led 
an austere and simple life. 

5. Aladdin. — This renunciation of splendor was at first very 
frequent among the Osmanli. The eldest brother of Orcan, 
Aladdin (Alla-Eddyn), preferred study to power, and, taking the 



THE BATTLE OF KOSSOVO 223 

title of Fizir, or " he who bears the burthen," he became the most 
venerated of the Turkish jurisconsults. The legislation which he 
initiated was based upon the moral precepts of the Koran, the 
traditional commentary, or Sunna, and rescripts of the decisions oi 
the pashas. The Turks were divided at that time into a civil 
and military population. Orcan distinguished the soldiers by 
means of a white turban and increased the number of young 
slaves who received a military education in order to fill out in 
time of w^ar the levies of the Osmanli. 

6. The Janissaries. — This permanent militia, recruited mainly 
from children paid as tribute by the Christians, and instructed in 
Islamism, received its pay and maintenance from the pasha, and 
he provided food for it as a foster-father. From this assumed rela- 
tionship rose the importance of the title of cook, which the officers 
took in order to indicate the pasha's solicitude for the soldiers' 
well-being; from this also arose the significance of the saucepan, 
the peculiar symbol of the militia. Their council held its meetings 
around the cauldron of the regiment, and when the people saw the 
soldiers bringing their saucepans into the public squares they 
knew it to be the signal for some great political or military event, 
the death of the ruler or a new war. They formed an infantry, 
broken to military service, and received the name of Janissaries; 
the Spahis, or Sepoys, were the cavalry. 

7. Murad the First. — The second son of Orcan, Murad I 
(Amurat, " the worker for God "), skilfully turned this organiza- 
tion to his profit to extend his rule in Asia, and to penetrate deep 
into the Balkan peninsula. He took Ancyra (Angora) and sent 
to the south of Asia Minor his lieutenant, Timur-Tash, to con- 
quer Karamania. In Europe he blockaded the Greek emperors 
by establishing himself at Adrianople in 1360, occupied Salonica, 
and, thanks to his possession of Gallipoli, restricted the Byzantines 
in the freedom of their movements around Constantinople; but 
the necessity for maintaining himself against the other orthodox 
people of the peninsula, the Slavs (Serbs), Slavo-Latins (Rou- 
manians), Slavo-Turanians (Bulgarians), prevented him from 
concentrating all his forces upon Constantinople. 

8. The Battle of Kossovo (1389).— The Serbs were above 
all others dangerous adversaries. Their great prince, Stephen, had 
conquered Bulgaria, Macedonia, Etolia, and Albania, and had 



224 THE OTTOMAN TURKS IN EUROPE 

dreamed of establishing himself at Constantinople in order to 
substitute the vigor of the Slavs of the south for the impotence of the 
Byzantines, but after his death Murad forced Serbia and Bul- 
garia to pay tribute. In 1387, he prevented the prince of Bul- 
garia, Sichman, from joining v^ith the Serbian prince, Lazarus 
Griblianovitch. Lazarus alone opposed him, and in 1389 the 
Serbs and the Osmanli met on the historic Plain of the Blackbirds 
at Kossovo. 

The Turks w^ere victorious, but treason had been at v^^ork in 
the Christian camp, and the legend of the vassal, Milosch 
Kovilovitsch, is still- sung today. Accused, in the midst of a 
common feast which preceded the battle, of treasonable negotia- 
tions w^ith the Turks, he swore to clear himself by killing Murad, 
and this he did by penetrating into the Turkish '^amp. A more 
probable recital tells that Milosch, wounded, avenged himself by 
striking down the pasha with his poniard at the moment when, 
after the capture of Lazarus, as a conqueror, the Ottoman ruler 
was hastening over the field of battle. The prince of Serbia was 
killed as a reprisal. Murad lingered only a few days, and his 
son Bajazet I succeeded him as sultan. 

9. The Timars and the Ziamets. — Under Murad I the 
volunteer cavalry of the Osmanli was transformed into an actual 
territorial and feudal army. Those who enrolled themselves 
under the Red Banner, as spahis, received according to the service 
they rendered either a timar or a ziamet, that is, portions of land 
cultivated by Greek serfs, who were compelled to pay a tithe 
to the knight who had received the hereditary usufruct. The 
spah'i had to take up arms himself in every campaign, and to 
furnish several additional horsemen. 

10. Bajazet I (1389-1403). — The continuous character of the 
war increased the authority of the pasha from day to day, but 
Murad's son, Bajazet (Bayezid I), was the first among those 
whose almost unlimited authority added corruption to cruelty. 
He had on his own account, it is said, installed four wine-shops 
at the four corners of the mosque at Brusa, and when in liquor he 
became ferocious. During the first days of his government he 
sent a bowstring to his brother, Yacub, whose popularity gave 
him uneasiness, with the order to strangle himself. Thus, there 
was begun the horrible custom of securing, at the beginning of 



THE MONGOLS 225 

each new reign, the disappearance of the younger sons of the 
house of Osman. Bajazet was the first to take the title of 
Sultan, and pushed his conquest with such vigor as to secure for 
himself the name of Il-Derim (the Thunderbolt). The vassalage 
of Serbia became more strict; Wallachia was threatened; the 
Mussulman princes of Asia were reduced to an absolute depend- 
ence; and in Constantinople, which he watched from close at 
hand, there were so many Turks that Manuel Paleologus had to 
admit a Moslem iman to pray there, and a cadi to render justice. 

11. The Battle of Nicopolis (1396).— Master of Bulgaria, 
the sultan finally laid siege to Nicopolis in 1396, the possession 
of which delivered the Danube and an entrance to continental 
Europe into the hands of the conqueror. " I am going to feed 
my horse from the altar of Saint Peter's at Rome," he had said, 
and the Knights of Rhodes, especially threatened by the progress 
of the Turk, organized a crusade of sixty thousand men for the 
relief of Nicopolis, to which the king of Hungary, Sigismund, 
later emperor, and the dukes of Bavaria and Styria furnished the 
most considerable contingent. The forces which France sent 
included many renowned warriors; but Bajazet had two hundred 
thousand troops. The Serb, Stephen Lazarovitch, and the Greeks, 
had declared themselves allies of the Turk, because of their hatred 
for the Latins ; the Transylvanians and the Wallachians abandoned 
the crusaders upon the day of combat; and. finally, the French 
made the attack before the agreed signal. They were surrounded 
and completely vanquished, in spite of an heroic resistance, which 
cost the Turks sixty thousand men. Bajazet put to death ten 
thousand prisoners and admitted to ransom only twenty-four 
knights. 

12. The Mongols. — The Mongol invasion prevented the sul- 
tan from turning this victory to his advantage, however. Since 
the time of Genghis-Khan, the Mongols in the country of their 
origin, between the Oxus and the Ural, had submitted to the 
rule of the Turcomans, until one of their chieftains, Timur Leng 
(Timur the Lame, Tamerlane) , set the people of southern Si- 
beria free. A fanatical Mussulman, he revived by his preaching 
the predatory instincts of his people, the Scythians of antiquity, and 
his bands of horsemen spread over Turkestan, Afghanistan, and 
Persia even to the Ganges, where they halted their devastating 



226 THE OTTOMAN TURKS IN EUROPE 

progress. They returned to the Euphrates, pillaged Bagdad, 
Damascus, and Aleppo (1400-1), afterwards Mesopotamia and 
Syria. Timur would perhaps have spared the Osmanli if Bajazet 
had not offered an asylum to the princes of upper Asia who had 
fled before the Mongols. 

13. The Battle of Ancyra (Angora, 1402).— They passed in 
Anatolia to the headwaters of the Tigris, and marched upon 
Brusa. The sultan despairingly attempted to oppose these terrible 
devastators, without having any illusion as to the possibility of 
resisting the force of their headlong attack. '' The tree of our 
fortune," he said, '' bends under its prosperity." The encounter 
took place in the plains of Ancyra (1402), where the battle con- 
tinued from dawn until nightfall. Abandoned by the Asiatics, 
Bajazet fought until he found himself alone. Then he attempted 
flight, but his horse fell, and he was taken with Musa, one of 
his sons. Timur at first gave him honorable treatment, but after 
an effort to escape, the Mongol chieftain had him drawn in his 
train in a grated chariot, and the sultan died a captive. As for 
Tamerlane, some difficulty in crossing the Hellespont was enough 
to induce him to return to his own country, and he was preparing 
to set out from Samarcand for China, when he died in 1405. 

14. Mohammed I (1402-1421). — Four sons of Bajazet 
claimed authority over the Turks, but Mohammed I ended a 
long period of anarchy in triumph over his brothers. These con- 
troversies, however, delayed the fall of Constantinople, and the 
emperor, Emanuel H, was even able to intervene skilfully in the 
discord of the sons of Bajazet. At the same time the religious 
supremacy of the sultan was attacked by the heretic Bedr-Ed-Din, 
the leader of a mendicant sect of dervishes, and even the intel- 
lectual superiority and theological science of Mohammed failed 
to stifle this formidable schism before his death in 1421. 

15. Murad II (1421-1451). — The right of succession was so 
uncertain that the death of Mohammed I was concealed, and the 
Janissaries were admitted to salute his body, which was seated in 
the attitude of life until the arrival at Brusa of his son, Murad II. 
The emperor Emanuel now attempted to renew his interference 
and supported the pretensions of a brother of Mohammed, Mus- 
tapha, but he was taken and killed. In order to take vengeance 
on Emanuel, Murad determined upon the assault of Constant!- 



THE BATTLE OF VARNA, 1444 227 

nople, but the city was saved, according to the Greeks, by the 
intervention of the Holy Virgin of gold, the Panaghia, and also 
because Anatolia arose and Murad feared to be taken from the 
rear. 

16. Conquests in Europe. — With Asia subdued, Murad 
changed his plan and with the idea of completing the occupation 
of the Greek peninsula before resuming the siege of Byzantium, 
he took Janina in Albania in 1430. An adventurer, John Cas- 
triot, master of the citadel of Croia, was compelled at this time to 
surrender his four sons as hostages; and among them was George, 
the future Scander-Beg. In 1433, one of the most ferocious de- 
fenders of Christendom in the Orient, Wlad Derakul, " the devil 
of Wallachia," acknowledged the suzerainty of Murad, but in 
1438, when Hungary was invaded, the sultan recognized the fact 
that he had found there a formidable adversary. 

17. John Hunyadi. — John Hunyadi Hollos (in Latin, Cor- 
vinus) was a prince of Transylvania and vassal of Hungary. To 
him King Ladislaus of Hungary intrusted the defense of Belgrade 
in 1439, and Murad retreated. Hunyadi Corvinus pursued his 
lieutenants, conquered Murad himself in Serbia, at Nish in 1443, 
and ended by imposing upon the sultan the pact of Szegedin, 
which took from the Turks both Serbia and Wallachia. Murad, 
already yielding to religious mysticism, and profoundly depressed 
by the death of his favorite son, Aladdin, now abdicated in favor 
of Mohammed II, who was still a child, and withdrew to Mag- 
nesia to end his life in prayer. 

18. The Battle of Varna (1444).— The legate, Cesarini, the 
enemy of the Hussites and president of the Council of Basel, felt 
that the time had arrived for a decisive crusade, and he arranged 
that Ladislaus of Hungary and John Hunyadi should direct with 
him an expedition into Bulgaria. The treaty of Szegedin was 
thereupon broken, and the Christians began the siege of Varna. 
Murad left his retreat, and, carrying before him the text of the 
treaty which had just been violated, attacked the Hungarian 
camp. Ladislaus was killed at the opening of the action, then 
Cesarini, and there was nothing left for Hunyadi to do but to 
beat a retreat. Murad won back Asia; but when the Janissaries 
refused to obey Mohammed II, the old sultan resumed his author- 
ity, visited punishment upon this turbulent militia, and retained 



228 THE OTTOMAN TURKS IN EUROPE 

the power from that time on till his death (1451). He took 
Corinth and Patras, but the Albanians offered a most successful 
resistance to him under their national chieftain; Scander-Beg. 

19. Scander-Beg. — George Castriot, the last surviving son 
of John Castriot of Croia, as a hostage had been brought up in 
the faith of Islam, and by his bravery won the favor of Murad. 
The Turks, whose Oriental origin had rendered them familiar 
with the name of the great Greek conqueror, Alexander, had given 
him the name Iskender-Beg, the lord Alexander, but the memory 
of the independence of his country remained with him in spite of 
his conversion, and in 1443, during the battle of Nish, he com- 
manded the secretary of the sultan to sign an order which de- 
livered over to him Croia. He marched upon the place with an 
astonishing rapidity, massacred the Turkish garrison, called Al- 
bania to arms,. and endeavored to create a principality there at 
the expense of the Mussulmans as well as of the Venetians. After 
the defeat of Hunyadi at Kossovo in 1448, Murad laid siege to 
Croia, but for two years Scander-Beg successfully held out, and 
the sultan, wearied of the war, proposed to invest him with 
Albania in return for the payment of tribute. Although Scander- 
Beg refused this oifer, nevertheless the siege was raised. Murad 
died the following year at Adrianople (1451). 

20. Mohammed II (1451-1483).— The successor of Murad, 
Mohammed II, united all the qualities and all the vices of the race 
of Osman. An administrator and remarkable soldier, an admirer 
of the arts, even those of the Christians, and capable of warm 
generosity, he was most often ferocious by reason of his fanaticism 
and temperament, grossly dissolute, and intoxicated almost to mad- 
ness by his unlimited power. Immediately upon his accession he 
signified his intention of capturing Constantinople. The emperor, 
Constantine XIII (Paleologus), was a man of great energy, his 
bravery was irreproachable, and his devotion to his people in the 
face of great danger was complete. This danger did not lie so 
much in the disparity of the numbers of the besiegers and the 
besieged, but rather, in consequence of a dwindling of the popula- 
tion and a precipitate flight before the siege, in an absolute paucity 
of fighting men within the city. The census which Constantine 
took showed hardly five thousand Greeks, including monks, and 
altogether, with the Venetians and Genoese, not more than eight 



THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE 229 

thousand men who had to defend a circuit of walls more than 
twelve miles long. 

21. Constantine XIII (1449-1453).— The emperor saw the 
peril approaching without being able to avoid it. He did not 
give up, however, but protested against the fortifications which 
Mohammed was erecting on the Bosphorus and on the Black Sea, 
and after receiving an insolent response from the sultan, prepared 
for a desperate struggle. At the end of 1452, the Turks con- 
tracted their approaches. Forgetting the prejudices of his race, 
Constantine sent to ask aid of Hunyadi, the king of Naples, the 
Venetians, and even Pope Nicholas V, who sent forces, which 
arrived too late. His appeals to other Powers were met with in- 
difference or with conditions to which he personally gave assent 
without having the power of committing his people. Cardinal 
Isidor celebrated the Catholic mass at Saint Sophia in December, 
1452, at which both Greek and Roman priests officiated, but later 
the Greek pope, Gennadios, raised a riot among the orthodox, and 
Mohammed found among them allies who preferred " the turban 
to the papal tiara." At the beginning of 1453 the Venetians 
and the Genoese sent some aid; nevertheless, Constantine was 
unable to gather together more than ten thousand men. 

22. The Siege of Constantinople. — By the end of March 
the Turks appeared under the walls of Constantinople with a 
force numbering one hundred and fifty thousand men. " Mo- 
hammed had a considerable equipment of guns — probably not 
less than sixty (one authority speaks of two hundred) ; and the 
cannon which he employed in the siege mark an epoch in the 
history of artillery. There were three cannon of enormous size, 
apparently larger than any which had yet been seen. . . . Some 
of the stone balls discharged by these guns passed over the walls 
and fell into the city, and still remain where they fell" (Bury). 
Two of these measured over seven feet in circumference. In 
addition to the land forces a fleet of eighty vessels blockaded the 
Golden Horn and the Hellespont. On the 6th of April, the 
sultan surrounded the western front of the city, leaving a small 
body of men to the east, around Pera, where he had secret means 
of intelligence. The emperor had closed the port of the Golden 
Horn from the Bosphorus by a chain composed of timber and 
rings of iron, and had strengthened the Blachernes at the northern 



230 THE OTTOMAN TURKS IN EUROPE 

end of the harbor, where the fortification of the wall was weak. 
The general Greek quarter was at the Saint Romanus gate, opposite 
where the tent of Mohammed II was pitched, but out of all the 
great Greek personages, Duke Notaras alone pardoned the em- 
peror for his alliance with the Latins and helped defend the port. 
On the 2 1 St of April, the fleet of the Genoese Giustiniani dra- 
matically forced the blockade and brought some reinforcements. 
The first attack of the Turks had failed, and since his ships could 
not reach the port of the Golden Horn by water, the sultan de- 
termined to take them by land. To this end Mohammed had built 
to the east of Galata, in the bed of a dried-up stream, an immense 
platform, smeared over with grease and fat, and in the night of 
the 2 1st or 22d of April, slid seventy-two vessels down this 
declivity into the harbor of the Golden Horn, thus getting his 
fleet behind the chain which protected the city from the side of 
the Bosphorus. He did not use Greek fire for fear of attracting 
the attention of the Venetian and Genoese vessels anchored at 
Pera. 

23. The Fall of Constantinople (May, 1453).— On the 23d 
day of May, after a blockade of fifty days, a breach was made by 
the Turkish artillery near the Saint Romanus gate, and the sultan 
offered to spare the life of Constantine and yield to him the gov- 
ernment of Morea, but on almost impossible conditions. In spite 
of the abject terror of the Greeks, prostrated before the great 
image of the Virgin, the Panaghia, the emperor refused, and the 
Grand Vizir, Chalil, announced to him then that a definite assault 
would take place on the 29th of May. Upon receipt of this news 
the last Paleologus emperor gathered together the chief men of 
the city and delivered a speech which Gibbon calls " the funeral 
oration of the Roman Empire," then he took communion at Saint 
Sophia while the dervishes were preaching a holy war in the 
Mussulman camp. Mohammed made liberal promises to his sol- 
diers of timars, or ziamets, and of still more considerable fiefs, 
the sandjaks. After a first fruitless Turkish attack Giustiniani was 
wounded, and withdrawing from the fight left the city. His de- 
parture was an alm.ost irreparable loss, since, after Constantine, 
he was commander in chief of the defending force. At eight 
o'clock in the morning the Janissaries had established themselves on 
the ramparts, and the breach of the Saint Romanus gate, having 



MOHAMMED AND THE MUSSULMANS 231 

been considerably enlarged, let in a swarm of the invaders. Con- 
stantine, heroically fighting, was killed in the mêlée, and the last 
defenders were crowded into Saint Sophia with a mass of panic- 
stricken people. The Turks forced their way there, and a fright- 
ful massacre of those who resisted stained the basilica with blood. 
At noon Mohammed made his entry into the city by the 
Adrianople gate and took possession of Saint Sophia in the name 
of Islamism. An old custom, supplemented by his promise, com- 
pelled him to give over the city to his troops for a pillage of 
three days; and he himself, in the midst of an orgy, had Notaras 
and several Christian chieftains put to death. Nevertheless, he 
quickly resumed control and organized his conquest with great 
celerity. 

24. Mohammed and the Greeks. — The loss of Constanti- 
nople deprived Christendom of all that was left of the Greek 
Empire. In spite of the importance of the catastrophe, it is 
only a convention, hardly to be justified, that makes this the 
point of departure for modern times, since the renaissance of 
letters had already begun before the Greek refugees brought new 
force to the movement of Hellenic humanism. The great inven- 
tions and discoveries of the XV century mark much better the be- 
ginning of a new era. 

The Greeks, at first frightened, soon recovered confidence. 
Mohammed invited the fugitives to gather together at the north 
in the quarter of the Phanarus. He was insistent upon the elec- 
tion of a new Patriarch, Gennadios (George Scholarius), the 
mortal enemy of the Latins. Upon him the sultan heaped honors, 
gave him judicial, religious, and civil power over the Christians, 
and yielded to him as well the churches of the Holy Apostles and 
of the " very gracious Virgin." The Greek population was a 
nation set beside that of the Turks, with the single difference of 
a double capitation tax. The Patriarch governed with a synod, 
the bishops governed likewise in their dioceses, and the com- 
munities had actual municipal liberty, but they were dependent 
upon an all-powerful and capricious master, who suspended very 
often the privilege he at first accorded. 

25. Mohammed II and the Mussulmans. — The sultan re- 
served to the Turks the western quarter of the city, Stamboul. 
Here he gathered not only the Osmanli, but also the Serbs and 



-^Z2 THE OTTOMAN TURKS IN EUROPE 

the Armenians, transformed several of the churches into mosques, 
and had the Seraglio begun for the purpose of definitely establish- 
ing himself there. He gave to the Turkish Empire, for an 
heraldic device, the Crescent of the Golden Horn. From this 
time on, the administrative organization was based upon an official 
regulation, '* Kanoun-Name," and the government was, and is, 
known as that of the Sublime Porte, or High Gate, since justice 
was originally dispensed at the gate of the palace, in commemora- 
tion of the original tent of Osman. There was no longer only 
one Vizir who was the prime minister; the other great officials 
were the treasurer, the grand judge, the secretary of the exterior, 
the commander of the army, and the admiral of the fleet. Among 
the domestic officers of the palace the most important were the 
commanders (aghas) of the black and white eunuchs, the chief 
gardener, and the chief of the couriers. The administration of 
law was in the hands of the Mohammedan religious classes. 

26. The Conquests of Mohammed II. — This wise organiza- 
tion and the profound military spirit of the Osmanli explains the 
security which soon became manifest in their new residence, and 
Mohammed II could now make use of all of his forces to extend 
his conquests. In 1462, he took Peloponnesus away from two of 
the Paleologi, and in 1467, the Serbian Mahmud-Pasha took 
Negropont from Venice. Scander-Beg, victor in the great battle 
of Alessio, maintained himself at Croia until his death in 1467. 
Ten years later the sultan compelled the city to surrender, all 
the inhabitants of which he put to death. The Venetian Dandolo 
had been the ally of Mohammed in this enterprise, as was also 
Prince Brankovitch, who desired to rid himself of Hunyadi, since 
he was regarded as unfavorable to the orthodox church of Serbia. 
In 1456, when the sultan attacked Belgrade, the breastwork of 
Christendom, John Corvinus was its sole defender with the 
Transylvanians ; and popular legend tells us by what exploits he 
saved the place. 

The Wallachian adventurer, Wlad Drakul, also resisted from 
1460 to 1479. In 1462 this singular Christian had impaled 
twenty thousand Turks on the Bucharest road. The sultan, victor 
at length, at the moment of entering the city in triumph, accord- 
ing to a tradition, not only admired the energy of the *' impaler," 
but was even ready to imitate him. He did not feel himself master 



HIS DEATH (1483) 233 

of Wallachia until Wlad had perished in an ambush in 1479- Mo- 
hammed then had the wisdom to be content with establishing his 
suzerainty' over the country. 

27. His Death (1483). — Mohammed was less fortunate out- 
side the Balkan peninsula. In 1475 a Turkish army was directed 
against Alba Royal, the capital of the king of Hungary, Mathias 
Corvinus. It was crushed near Lake Platen by the ally of the 
Hungarians, Stephen IV of Moldavia, who impaled as readily 
as Wlad. On the Black Sea, the sultan reduced to submission the 
Khan of Crimea, Dewlet-Gheraï, and drove the Genoese from 
their establishments at Kaffa, Kertch, and Balaklava. He occu- 
pied Akkermann ; but the Moldavian hero prevented him from 
penetrating into Bessarabia. Mohammed then attempted to in- 
crease his power in another direction. At the instigation of Venice, 
whose good understanding with the Turks was at that time the 
scandal of Europe, he took possession of Otranto in Italy by a bold 
surprise ; but the Turks were not able to maintain themselves there. 
One of his lieutenants was at length repulsed before Rhodes in 
1480, by the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John, and 
Mohammed II himself died a year later. May 2d, 1483. Al- 
though the rule of the Osmanli continued to extend itself in the 
Mediterranean and in Hungary under his successors, he was the 
true creator of an empire which remained unbroken for more than 
two centuries. Only in the XVIII century did Turkey enter upon 
a period of slow decline, which was to lead to complete ruin, but 
not without causing great convulsions in Europe. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE UNITY OF SPAIN ( 1252-15 16).— FERDINAND 
AND ISABELLA 

1. Aragon (1276-1458).— Between the end of the XIII cen- 
tury and the beginning of the XV, Spain, which seemed hopelessly 
disunited, saw at length the disappearance of every obstacle which 
had stood in the way of her unity and by a series of unexpected 
events a powerful nationality was formed with the marriage of Fer- 
dinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. The Iberian peninsula 
at this time consisted of four Christian realms: Aragon, Castile, 
Navarre (half-French and half-Spanish), and Portugal. The 
Mussulmans, who formed a fifth, having been continuously crowded 
back since the great battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), had 
been at that time forced beyond the Guadiana and the Sierra 
Morena, and were still able to maintain themselves, thanks only 
to the division of their enemies. 

Aragon, under the government of the house of Barcelona, had 
increased her territories by the addition, in 1276, of the kingdom 
of Valencia, and in 1282 Pedro III took possession of Sicily after 
the Sicilian Vespers. In 14 10, when the national dynasty died out, 
the grandees of Aragon transferred the crown to Ferdinand IV of 
Castile. 

2. Castile from 1252 to 1454.— Castile, during the XIII and 
^IV centuries, was governed by princes alternately energetic and 
incapable. Alphonso (X) the Scholar (1252-1284) was the patron 

f the arts, literature, and science, especially the science of astron- 
omy. He was the author of the Alphonsine Astronomical Tables 
and the creator of the seven-part law code {Siete Partidas), one of 
the great legislative monuments of the age. Alphonso XI won 
distinction by his great victory over the Mussulmans at Rio 
Salado (1340). His son, Pedro (II) the Cruel, was notoriously 
ruthless to his own people and arrogant with the nobles, and as the 

234 



JOHN II OF ARAGON 235 

ally of the English Black Prince, was defeated by the French 
leader, Du Guesclin, and later killed by his natural brother, 
Henry of Trastamara. Under John I, Henry III, and John II, 
that is, from 1375 to 1454, the prolonged struggle between the 
Castilian royalty and the upper feudal nobility resulted in a period 
of great confusion which the reign of Henry (IV), the Powerless, 
brought to a climax. 

3. Navarre. — Navarre had its capital at Pamplona in Spain, 
but overflowed the Pyrenees upon the French side. It had had a 
French dynasty ever since the time of Saint Louis, when Joanna 
of Champagne brought it as her dower to Philip the Fair. Her 
granddaughter, Jeanne of France, inherited it, and married her 
cousin, Philip of Evreux. The interests of their son, Charles the 
Bad, at the close of his life, turned toward Spain, and the daughter 
of his successor, Blanche, married John (II) of Aragon, who be- 
came king of Aragon in 1458. 

4. The Decadence of the Moors of Granada. — The Moors 
up to the XV century had stubbornly maintained themselves in 
Granada. At one time they hoped, with the aid of the princes of 
Fez (Morocco), to resume the ascendency, but they were de- 
feated at Rio Salado and lost Algeciras. From that time on they 
were checked by the Christians. Ferdinand of Aragon, as soon as 
he became king, in a campaign of Granada defeated them in 14 10. 
The internal disorders in Castile delayed the advance of the 
Christians, and the Mussulmans themselves were, at the same 
time, torn by civil dissensions. 

5. Portugal. — As for Portugal, although upon several occa- 
sions her kings had been involved in questions concerning the 
succession in Castile, and in spite of the fact that they had taken 
part in the expeditions against the Moors, notably at the great 
battle of Rio Salado, she more and more sought to establish an 
independent existence. The advent of the Avis dynasty in 1383, 
by launching the Portuguese upon their maritime expeditions, 
marked out for them, in spite of their common origin, a career 
distinct from that of the other nations of the peninsula. 

6. John II of Aragon (1397-1479).— Aragon and "Castile 
were also no more ready for a close understanding. As has 
already been indicated, the reigns of John II and Henry IV rather 
abruptly precipitated a union, John II was one of the princes 



236 THE UNITY OF SPAIN 

of the XV century whose entire energy was concentrated upon 
the centralization of authority and the establishment of absolute 
power. Through the claims of his wife, Blanche of Navarre, to 
the throne, in spite of the stipulations of a marriage contract, he 
became king of Navarre as well, and Aragon and Navarre were 
for a time administered by a single sovereign. In the Aragonese 
assemblies, or the Cortes, the kings were very narrowly watched 
over by the high nobility {ricos hombres) and their representative, 
the Justiciar Majorj was a veritable inquisitor established near 
the king. The townspeople of the privileged cities of Catalonia, 
the communeros, proud of their chartered rights, or fueros, were 
likewise very hard to govern, but John II, like Louis XI of 
France, did not hesitate to engage in a struggle with the high 
nobility, and, indifferent as to a choice of means, stopped at noth- 
ing in order to extend the possessions and the authority of the 
house of Aragon. After the death of his brother, Alphonso (V) 
the Magnanimous, to whose possessions he succeeded in 1458, John 
was more occupied with Italy than concerned about the unity of 
Spain, especially when the Cortes had sanctioned the perpetual 
union of the kingdom of Sicily and Sardinia with the crown of 
Aragon. He died in 1479, leaving his vast estate to his son, Ferdi- 
nand, who was called " the Catholic." 

7. Don Carlos de Viana. — John's first wife had bequeathed 
Navarre to his son, Don Carlos de Viana, and, contingent upon 
his previous death, to her daughter Blanche. But before be- 
coming king, John II had had two children by a second marriage, 
Ferdinand and Leonora, and he now attempted to transfer to the 
daughter of his second marriage the rights of his children by the 
first. Don Carlos, a well-informed, energetic prince, who was 
popular in Navarre and Catalonia, took up arms against him, 
was beaten (1451), and made prisoner. He escaped, however, 
took refuge in Sicily, and reappeared in Aragon in 1458 at the 
time of the succession of his father to the Sicilian throne. Im- 
prisoned again, he was set at liberty only after an uprising of 
the people of Navarre and Catalonia, and died almost immediately 
afterwards. His death and that of his sister, Blanche, were 
attributed by some to Jeanne Henrique, the second wife of John 
II, and by others to Leonora her daughter. Leonora at least 
became the queen of Navarre and her daughter married a member 



MARRIAGE OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA 237 

of the D'Albret family, who transmitted the kingdom to the house 
of Bourbon. As for John II, he reduced Catalonia to submission, 
but with difficulty, and only after securing the support of Louis 
XI in return for the promise that the king of France should have 
Roussillon for his services. His reign ended in 147g after he had 
carried on the secret negotiations which resulted in the marriage 
of his son, Ferdinand, with Isabella of Castile. 

8. Henry IV of Castile and Bertrand de la Cueva. — The 
great opponent of this marriage, which determined the question of 
the unity of Spain, was the last king of Castile, Henry IV, a ruler 
feeble alike in mind and body. Dominated by a brilliant and able 
young noble of modest origin, Bertrand (Beltran) de la Cueva, 
the king went so far in his admiration as to bestow upon him the 
Grand Mastership of the Order of Saint James of Compostella, 
which had been reserved up to that time to the leaders of the 
great houses of Castile. Although scandalously accused of being 
the paramiour of the queen and the father of the royal Princess of 
Asturias, who, in allusion to the alleged irregularity of her birth, 
was called the Beltraneja, the favorite, as a matter of fact, was 
especially hated for having brought about the triumph of the 
hidalgos over the party of the great nobles. 

9. The Cortes of Avila. — A revolt, provoked by the high 
nobility and directed by its leader, the archbishop of Toledo, in- 
duced Henry to remove Bertrand. The rebels then further de- 
manded the disinheriting of the Beltraneja in favor of the king's 
brother, Alphonso, and in default of him, in favor of his sister 
Isabella. At length, fearing the return of the favorite, they 
pronounced the deposition of Henry IV in a Cortes which was 
held at Avila. Alphonso was acclaimed king, but died in 1467. 
Bertrand de la Cueva was recalled by the last king and the 
rebels were defeated near Medina del Campo (1468). Henry 
then recognized his sister, Isabella, as Princess of Asturias upon 
the sole condition, however, that she should not marry except 
with his consent. 

10. Marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. — John II of Ara- 
gon, however, for a long time had been planning the marriage of his 
son Ferdinand with Isabella, and the archbishop of Toledo fa- 
vored the arrangement. The marriage was then celebrated secretly, 
but Henry IV found out what was being planned and, after 



238 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA 

recognizing anew the rights of his sister, had wished to marry her 
either to the brother of Louis XI of France or to Alphonso V of 
Portugal, but he was too late. When he died in 1474, Isabella 
assumed the government of Castile with her husband Ferdinand of 
Aragon, and was recognized by the entire nobility of Aragon, even 
by Bertrand de la Cueva, as queen of Castile. 

*' They found themselves confronted with an immense task ; 
they had to fortify the royal authority profoundly shaken by the 
usurpations of the nobility and long intestine struggles, and they 
were compelled to re-establish internal security compromised, even 
to the breaking point, by a number of discordant elements. Above 
all in difficulty they set themselves the supreme achievement of 
expelling the Moors." 

11. Isabella the Catholic. — Isabella the Catholic enjoys a 
reputation for intelligence and breadth of mind, justified espe- 
cially when she is compared with her husband, Ferdinand V, the 
most perfidious of men, able, without doubt, and devoted to the 
aggrandizement of Spain, but narrow and mean-spirited. 

Isabella was a woman of her time, profoundly Spanish, and 
even more Castilian. Absolute and determined to rule by herself, 
it was, nevertheless, in response to the demands of the nobles and 
the people, who wanted the government to remain Castilian, that 
she granted to her husband at Toledo a very limited authority only. 
What renders her superior to her contemporaries is her straight- 
forwardness and her boldness in a century characterized by tricks 
and perfidies. With justice she is said to have been the head of 
the army that drove out the Moors, and her discernment dis- 
covered both Columbus and Gonsalvo de Cordova. Indeed, the 
historian Prescott places her political genius above that of Queen 
Elizabeth of England. 

12. The Struggle Against the Aristocracy. — With such a 
sovereign, the Castilian nobility soon regretted Henry IV. The 
archbishop of Toledo, driven out of power for the benefit of a 
rival prelate, went over to the party of the Beltraneja, who was 
then a refugee in Portugal. The Portuguese invaded Spain, but 
Ferdinand, who was not without military talents himself, had 
in his service one of the greatest warriors of the XV century, 
Gonsalvo de Cordova. 

Gonsalvo beat Alphonso V at Toro on the Douro near Zamora, 



THE CATHOLIC KINGS AND THE TOWNS 239 

and the cause of the Beltraneja was finally lost. The Castilian 
aristocracy still resisted the assertions of the royal power up to 
1478, and the prince of Aragon attacked the great vassals, one 
after the other, and destroyed a number of their castles. When in 
time Ferdinand became king of Aragon in 1479, feudalism in 
Castile had already yielded to the absolute power of Isabella. 

13. The Inquisition in Spain. — Isabella had been urged re- 
peatedly to reorganize the inquisitorial courts in Spain, not only 
by the fanatical Torquemada, her confessor, but by the leading 
Spanish clergj^men as well. She yielded with reluctance, and at 
her request Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull which provided for the 
establishment of the Holy Office, or Inquisition, in Spain (1478). 

Ferdinand, in his desire for centralization, had wished to have 
an Inquisition organized so that the crown should control it. The 
pope resisted this plan for a time, but was obliged to yield. As a 
result, the Spanish Inquisition became a part of the regular ma- 
chinery of the state, under the absolute control of the throne. 
Essentially, it was a court set up to conduct an inquest, or inquiry, 
for the purpose of determining questions of individual belief, that 
is to say, to ferret out heresy. The examination was secret and the 
answers to certain stated questions were secured by means of 
physical torture, in which the rack, the thumbscrew, and the pulley 
were used. When he was found guilty, and in rare cases, only, was 
he proved innocent, the condemned heretic was generally im 
prisoned or burned at the stake, and his property confiscated by the 
king's treasury. 

Its introduction into Spain is best explained by the inefficiency 
of the old episcopal inquisitorial courts of Castile at a time when 
the conquest of the Moors and the forced conversions of the Mus- 
sulmans and the Jews had greatly increased the number of these 
" New Christians " whose faith was doubtful and whose doctrines 
were under suspicion. 

14. The Catholic Kings and the Towns.— The triumph of 
royalty brought about in Spain, as in the rest of Europe, the 
establishment of a security unknown up to that time. The con- 
fraternities of the Spanish towns, formed for the pursuit of the 
brigands, were transformed by the Catholic kings into one vast 
police force, whose activity was now directed against their com- 
mon enemy, the inhabitants of the castles. Its influence made 



240 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA 

itself definitely felt in the Pyrenees, in Galicia, at Toledo, Valencia, 
and Cordova, where the justices of the peace in the towns, like 
the provosts and the baillis in France, were narrowly watched over 
by the royal inspectors. In taking over the Grand-mastership of 
the three orders of Saint James, Alcantara, and Calatrava, which 
were very rich, Ferdinand secured for the crown the financial re- 
sources which it lacked. Thus governed by a unique power, Spain, 
from this time on, must be considered as a nation. 

15. Boabdil. — One of the results of the formation of the 
Spanish monarchy was that the Mussulman domination was 
brought to an end. Since the XIII century the Moors had been 
reduced to the kingdom of Granada, whose founder, Mohammed, 
constructed the Alhambra. His successors of the XIV century 
resisted the suzerainty of Castile up to the last moment, but 
palace revolutions favored the advance of the Christian armies. 
In 148 1 Abu Abdallah (Boabdil) drove his father, Muley Hassan, 
and his uncle, Abdallah el Zagal, out of Granada. He was de- 
feated by the Castilians, and his father resumed authority. 
Boabdil, in order to overthrow him, now declared himself a vassal 
of Castile, and took possession of the Alhambra, in spite of the 
heroic defense of El Zagal, in whose favor his brother had ab- 
dicated. El Zagal, in his turn, surrendered to Isabella all the 
fortified places around Granada which still belonged to the Moors. 
Boabdil was thus reduced to the possession of that city only. 

16. The Conquest of Granada. — When, in 1490, El Zagal 
was called upon in accordance with the recent convention to 
receive a Spanish garrison he refused, and Ferdinand and Isabella 
laid siege to Granada. This immense city of four hundred thou- 
sand souls, with the thousand towers of its city walls and its 
strong position, dominated by the Alhambra, could hardly be 
taken by direct assault. Gonsalvo de Cordova therefore advised a 
rigid blockade. In vain the besieged burned Isabella's camp; the 
queen replaced it by an actual town built of wood, Santa Fé. 
After nine months of siege the inhabitants of Granada accepted the 
treaty of Santa Fé (November, 1491) by the terms of which 
Granada was surrendered to the Catholic kings, and the Moors 
retained their customs, their liberty, and their religion. The 
Jews, whom the Mussulmans had tolerated, were accorded the 
same privileges. Boabdil received considerable territory in the 



THE DEATH OF ISABELLA 241 

mountains of Alpujarras, but he became an exile in Africa, where 
he died as an adventurer. The Catholic kings made a formal 
entry into the city on the 2d of January, 1492. It is to be noted 
that unfortunately the treaty of Santa Fé was very quickly violated 
and that religious persecution began almost at once. 

17. The Expulsion of the Jews. — An edict issued March 
30th, 1492, provided for the departure of every Jew from the 
Spanish dominions by the following July. This harsh measure was 
due, in the main, to a fanatical belief that the Spanish Christians 
were being contaminated in their oxthodox religious life by their 
intercourse with the Jews, and it led to the expulsion of between 
one hundred and fifty thousand and two hundred thousand of the 
most industrious part of the Spanish population. The conquest of 
Granada ; the discovery of America ; and the expulsion of the Jews 
are the three great events of the year 1492 in Spain. 

18. The Crusada Bull. — The capture of Granada was for 
Ferdinand and Isabella not only a great military triumph, but 
still more a pious achievement. Alexander VI bestowed upon 
them the title of " Catholic Kings," and even surrendered to them 
a part of his spiritual authority over Spain. The Crusada Bull, 
under pretext of a crusade, placed within the hands of Ferdinand 
the direction of the Inquisition and the nomination of bishops and 
abbots, and the king made further use of this power to watch 
very narrowly over the religious opinion of his subjects. 

19. The Death of Isabella. — Isabella seems less responsible 
than Ferdinand for the violation of the treaty of Santa Fé. It 
was she, not Ferdinand, who received Christopher Columbus in 
1 49 1. She, too, lightened the taxes, and reasons of state had not 
killed in her all natural feeling, for her heart was broken by the 
bereavements which fell upon her. She lost successively her son 
Juan, and her eldest daughter Isabella, the wife of Emanuel of 
Portugal, who, had she remained the Princess of Asturias, might 
have made possible the union of the Iberian peninsula. There 
were left her two daughters, Joanna, and Catharine, the wife of 
Henry VIII of England. Joanna, having become the Princess of 
Asturias, married the son of Maximilian I, Philip the Handsome. 
Their first son Carlos (later the Emperor Charles) was born 
in 1500; but Philip treated with indifference, perhaps with bru- 
tality, his Spanish wife, who was weak-minded, if not mad. He 



242 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA 

even refused to stay in Spain. These domestic misfortunes hast- 
ened Isabella's death. She died in 1504, leaving the regency to 
Ferdinand the Catholic until Charles should reach the age of 
twenty. 

20. Ferdinand and Philip the Handsome. — The king of 
Aragon assumed the government of Castile v^hile proclaiming 
Joanna and Philip as its rulers; but Philip pretended to be dis- 
satisfied with this arrangement. He dictated a letter for his 
wife, in order to remove by this means any question as to the 
clearness of her mind. In this letter, apparently, she declared 
herself qualified to rule, and the Cortes of Valladolid sustained 
her contention. The archduke Philip now exercised royal author- 
ity in Castile, but he died a short time afterwards in 1506. Be- 
sides Charles, he left a second son, Ferdinand, the archduke of 
Austria. 

21. Ximenes. — Joanna completely lost her mind upon the 
death of her husband, whom she adored. Her madness, however, 
took the form of a profound despondency, and if Ferdinand, and 
later Charles, had her confined a prisoner for forty years at 
Tordesillas, it was due to a well-grounded fear of seeing formed 
around her a party which would be entirely Castilian. 

The king of Aragon succeeded at this time in gaining posses- 
sion of the regency with the support of the archbishop of Toledo, 
Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, the former confessor of Isabella. 
This great administrator had closed to himself any ecclesiastical 
ambition by becoming a Franciscan monk, and he accepted the 
archbishopric of Toledo only upon the reiterated commands of 
the pope. In Castile his great influence was used to secure the 
recognition of the authority of Ferdinand in 1507. Elevated to 
the cardinalate, he governed in the name of the regent and of 
Charles I, and signalized his administration by himself organizing 
and directing an expedition against the Mussulmans of Barbary. 
He took possession of Oran and Bougia, and when the beys of 
Algiers, Tlemcan, and Tunis for the time being became tributaries 
to Spain, the cardinal re-entered Toledo in triumph (15 10). 

22. The Foreign Policy of Ferdinand.' — It is doubtful 
whether Ferdinand ever boasted, as he is reported to have done, 
that he " had deceived Louis XII of France twelve different 
times," but the anecdote gives a fair idea of what his contempo- 



THE FOREIGN POLICY OF FERDINAND 243 

raries regarded as probable and as characteristic of Ferdinand. 
Her two sovereigns had completely supplemented each the other 
in the administration and the foreign policy of Spain. Isabella, 
with her large sj^mpathy, her directness, and her charm of manner, 
devoted herself to the administrative affairs of the realm, where 
her popularity was a very important factor. Ferdinand, astute, 
daring, sinuous, and knavish, assumed charge of the foreign policy 
of Spain. In this he was amazingly successful, attaining the 
objects at which he aimed largely by the exercise of these very 
qualities. In the main, this policy was dictated by a desire for 
foreign conquest and by the fear and suspicion which he felt 
that the power of France or of the house of Hapsburg might be- 
come too great. 

After the duchy of Milan had been taken by Louis XII of 
France, Naples became his next objective point. Here he at once 
encountered the opposition of Ferdinand, who had helped restore 
the house of Aragon to the throne of Naples after the retreat of 
Charles VIII. Ferdinand thus might reasonably be expected to lay 
claim to the throne of Naples himself. " But how," said his envoy 
to Louis, " if you were to come to some agreement with us respect- 
ing Naples, as you did with Venice about Milan?" Louis was 
captivated by the suggestion, and as a result the treaty of Granada 
(1500) was signed with Ferdinand. It provided for the divi- 
sion between them of the kingdom of Naples; but the loose word- 
ing of the treaty furnished almost immediately an occasion for 
war to break out between the French and Spanish troops around 
Naples, — a war which ultimately resulted in the possession of 
the kingdom of Naples by Ferdinand. 

In Spain, upon the death of Isabella (1504), Ferdinand, dis- 
regarding the claims of her husband, the archduke Philip, attempted 
to seize the regency of Castile in the name of his insane daughter 
Joanna. But the Castilian nobles rallied about Philip, and 
Ferdinand, almost isolated in Castile, now turned to his late 
enemy, Louis XII, with whom he made the treaty of Blois 
(1505). By the terms of this treaty Ferdinand agreed to marry 
Germaine de Foix, niece of the French king, to whom the French 
claims on Naples were to be resigned. They were, however, to 
revert to Louis XII in case there was no issue of the marriage. 
The reason which actuated Ferdinand in this move seems to have 



244 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA 

been a fear of the Hapsburgs, which a male heir that he hoped 
might be born of this union would remove. Its immediate result 
was to patch up his quarrel with Louis, and to leave Ferdinand 
secure in Spain and in Naples. Being temporarily at peace with 
Louis and having again united Castile to Aragon, which he was 
able to do after the death of the archduke Philip (1506), Ferdi- 
nand readily consented to join the league of Cambrai (1508). 
This was a league consisting of Julius II, the emperor Maximilian 
I, Louis XII, and Ferdinand of Spain for the purpose of dividing 
the territories of Venice among them. Profiting by the battle of 
Agnadel, the king of Spain took several towns near Naples which 
had been given up to Venice by the king of Naples in return for 
aid against Charles VIII. 

Julius, in the course of the war, having sufficiently humiliated 
Venice, now began to fear the power of the French in Italy, and 
resolved to drive them out. For this purpose he organized the 
Holy League (1511), consisting of the pope, Henry VIII, the 
Swiss, the Venetians, and Spain. Ferdinand, having already taken 
the towns in Apulia, was no longer interested in plans against 
Venice, and was glad to join the pope against the French. He 
was particularly favorable to an Italian war, inasmuch as it 
promised to enable him to round out his territory in Spain by the 
seizure of Navarre, for an express stipulation had been made that 
the pope should confirm to Spain any conquest made by her outside 
of Italy, and this could only mean Navarre. The fact that the 
king of Navarre was at that time under the ban of excommunica- 
tion still further favored this plan, a circumstance which Ferdi- 
nand made the most of in his invasion of Navarre. At the same 
time the French army in Italy was commanded by Louis XII's 
nephew, Gaston de Foix, brother of Ferdinand's wife. His death at 
the great battle of Ravenna (15 12) transferred his disputed claim 
upon the crown of Navarre to Germaine, his sister, who was 
Ferdinand's wife, and it was in her name that Ferdinand pressed 
the claim. His Spanish troops had little difficulty in overrunning 
the country, and all of Navarre that lay on the Spanish side of 
the Pyrenees became part of the Spanish possessions (15 13). 
French Navarre, on the other side of the Pyrenees, continued to 
be an independent kingdom until it was absorbed by the French 
crown under Henry (IV) of Navarre. 



THE FOREIGN POLICY OF FERDINAND 245 

Thus was completed the Spanish territorial unity which had be- 
gun in the union of Castile and Aragon, was continued by the 
taking of Granada, and completed by the taking of Spanish Na- 
varre, while abroad, Spain was secure in the possession of the 
kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. 



CHAPTER XVII 
GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

1. The Passing of the Middle Ages. — " Great as have been 
the poHtical and reHgious changes of the last one hundred years, 
they fall short of those which took place in the three generations 
following the first voyage of Columbus. A man like Las Casas 
who was approaching maturity in 1492 saw the discovery of a 
new world, the opening to European traffic of three vast oceans, 
the circumference of the globe, the setting forth of the Copernican 
theory of the solar system, the establishment of the Spanish Em- 
pire in the New World, and the Protestant revolution, events in 
their novelty and their far-reaching consequences surpassing any- 
thing in the history of mankind since the establishment of the 
Roman Empire and the advent of Christianity" (Bourne, Spain in 
America). 

With our attention thus directed to the marvelous exploring 
activity of the XV century, it is well to note that it was a period 
singularly rich also in striking innovations, and in the application 
of the great inventions, such as the mariner's compass, gun- 
powder, and printing, which mark the transformation of the 
Middle Ages. Preceding centuries had, indeed, played their 
part in advancing civilization, but the XV century was especially 
distinguished by a prodigious intellectual activity. The use of 
the mariner's compass enabled Christopher Columbus and the 
Portuguese explorers to venture across the Atlantic Ocean ; and 
successive applications of the art of making paper from linen, of 
engraving and printing, furnished to the intellectual development 
of the age a means hitherto unknown, while the art of warfare 
and, up to a certain point, European diplomacy, was revolutionized 
by the adoption of gunpowder. 

2. Gunpowder. — The explosive mixture of saltpeter, carbon, 
^nd sulphur which bears the name of gunpowder, had been known 

246 



GUNPOWDER 247 

in the Far East since remote antiquity. The Arabians early 
brought the formula for it with them, while, later, the Byzan- 
tines, the English Roger Bacon, and the Germans, Albertus 
Magnus and Berthold Schwartz, mentioned it. From the begin- 
ning of the XIII century, the Mussulmans had made use of this 
explosive to hurl balls of stone, notably in Spain, and in the XIV 
century ii. \ s employed at Florence and in France, but the heavy 
bombardes which were employed generally made a good deal of 
noise and did little harm. The Turks, although they were for 
a long time familiar with these engines, did not make very much 
use of them until the siege of Constantinople. 

With the introduction of firearms, armor gradually lost its old 
favor, inasmuch as with the advance in the efficiency of the arque- 
bus and the cannon, it soon became evident that no armor could 
protect a horse and his rider against projectiles driven by gun- 
powder. Besides this, the equilibrium between body armor and 
the force of any offensive weapon wielded by the human arm 
alone had about been reached some time before gunpowder came 
into general use. As a result, when this new force was added to 
the offensive, fighting had to take place at a distance, and hand-to- 
hand conflicts gradually ceased to be the rule. In response to 
this change also the helmet and body armor, along with the sword, 
the lance, and the pike, began to be less and less relied upon, and 
success in war from now on had to be looked for in the develop- 
ment of tactics and strategy, rather than in the momentum and 
shock of charging masses of men. 

Gunpowder, too, had a revolutionary effect in its power to 
destroy the castles of the feudal nobles. The feudal castle-fortress, 
isolated upon a craig or in the bend of a river, was able to with- 
stand the attacks made upon it close at hand by means of the 
mechanical contrivances of the Middle Ages, such as the catapult, 
the ballsta, and the mangonel, but quickly crumbled under cannon 
fire which could be delivered from a distance. On the other hand, 
artillery could not be mounted on the castle walls for defending 
them because the heavy recoil very quickly shook the walls down. 
Finally, artillery was too expensive for even the most powerful 
nobles to maintain, and it became the peculiar engine of the cen- 
tralized monarchy, which, by its resources in men and money, could 
develop and finance its operations. 



248 GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

3. Paper. — The process of making paper from linen rags, and 
the arts of engraving and printing had results of far greater 
import than the changes brought about by the introduction of 
firearms. The general results of the intellectual Renaissance, 
of the Protestant Reformation, and the solidarity of nationalities 
as they found expression in the absolute monarchies of the XVI 
century, were all vitally dependent upon the w^ide circulation of 
general ideas, and this circulation was in turn dependent upon the 
manufacture of cheap paper, which alone made of the invention of 
printing such a universal and tremendous force. 

Neither the papyrus of ancient Egypt, the parchment (sheep- 
skin), nor vellum (calf-skin), each of them difficult, slow, and 
costly in preparation, had permitted either books or ideas to spread 
at all generally or cheaply; but the introduction of the manufac- 
ture of paper from linen offered a ready and permanent substitute 
for all of them. 

The invention of paper made from rags seems to have been 
introduced into Europe by the Arabians in their western invasions ; 
and there is some ground for believing that linen paper was used 
in Europe as early as the eleventh century. Little significance at- 
taches to the latter fact, however, since paper did not come into 
common use or displace parchment for years after the first book 
was printed from movable type. It is true that with the more or 
less general use of linen in the XIV century the price of paper 
pulp was subsequently reduced, but the ultimate cheapness of 
paper and its widespread use was primarily in response to the 
demand which the printing press made upon it. 

4. Printing. — Printing began by engraving on wood. Char- 
acters in wood had early been used at Rome for the purpose of 
teaching reading, and the Chinese had employed blocks cut in 
relief in order to strike off billets similar to our bank notes. In 
the Middle Ages metal patterns also were used for printing play- 
ing cards, the initial capital letters of manuscripts, and even books 
of chants. These were then replaced by matrices of wood, and 
finally, in the XV century, there were printed from wooden blocks 
picture books, the Poor Man s Bible, and the Grammar of Donatus. 
All that was needed after this progress was to make use of isolated 
movable characters in order to bring about the invention of print- 
ing. The Dutch, without sufficient warrant, attribute this dis- 



THE FIRST PRINTED BOOKS 249 

covery to Lorenz Jansson (Coster) of Harlem. In any case, 
Gutenberg made the discovery upon his own account, and to him 
is due the practical establishment of typography. 

5. Gutenberg (1400-1468). — It had been quickly noticed that 
wood soon wore out, and printing really received its great impulse 
from the invention of movable metal characters. John Gansfleisch 
of Mayence, who was better known under the name of John 
Gutenberg, attached his name to this discovery. Patrician of 
one of the most intellectual cities of Germany and exiled to Stras- 
burg during the discords of his country, he seems to have united 
the scientific enthusiasm of an inventor with an incapacity for 
practical use of his results. After experiments which ruined him, 
he found at last an alloy of lead and antimony, solid enough to 
give a number of impressions and soft enough to take the ink 
necessary for printing. To speak accurately he is the inventor of 
movable type. He added to this first and chief invention the press, 
which made the impressions more even ; the composing stick, which 
gave to them a mathematical regularity; and finally he made 
experiments in copying the letters found in manuscripts which led 
printers more and morç |o prefer the Roman letters to the Gothic 
type. 

6. The First Printed Books. — Owing to a lack of money, 
the invention of Gutenberg threatened to remain undeveloped. 
Fortunately at this time he was able to return to Mayence and 
secure for his plans the interest of John Fust, a rich goldsmith 
and money-lender. An able workman, Peter Schoeffer, later Fust's 
son-in-law, joined them. He is said to have introduced many 
improvements in the art of printing, but his claim to the discovery 
of the method of casting metal is not generally recognized. These 
three associated together, and between 1453 and 1455 they pub- 
lished a Bible of six hundred and forty pages; but they quarreled 
during the work, and Fust, who appears to have been a hard man 
of business, parted from Gutenberg in 1455 after seizing Guten- 
berg's printing-press, type, and stock, in default of repayment of 
the money which he had loaned Gutenberg. Fust then remained 
alone with Schoeffer. Together they published the Psalter 0/ 
Mayence (1457). Gutenberg, now having to rely upon his own 
limited resources, brought out in 1458 a Bible of inferior execu- 
tion,, and an encyclopedia called the Catholicon. From this time 



250 GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

on ail trace of him l's lost, and the other books attributed to him 
are under suspicion as to their genuineness. Fust came to Paris 
to dispose of his Bibles as manuscripts, but the imposture was 
discovered and the Sorbonne treated him as a magician. After 
his departure, Louis XI, in 1462, sent an engraver Jenson, to 
Mayence to get information about the art of printing, and in 
1470 some of the presses vv^ere set up in Paris. The extreme 
cheapness of hand labor, and, as a result, the low cost of books, 
rapidly spread the new invention throughout Europe, and it was 
at this moment that the new world opened before the eyes of 
Europe. 

7. The Compass. — The use of the compass had rendered pos- 
sible the movement of expansion which, from the end of the XV 
century to the end of the XVI century, gave to the people of 
Europe the knowledge of a third of the globe up to that time un- 
explored. The property which the magnetic needle possesses of 
turning to the north had been long known in the Orient, though 
the honor of the invention of the compass should no longer, per- 
haps, be given to the Chinese. Indeed, it is generally admitted 
that they made no particular use of their observations. The 
Arabians brought a knowledge of the magnetic needle to the West, 
and in the XIII century the poet Guyot of Provence, Roger 
Bacon, and the encyclopaedist, Vincent of Beauvais, described as 
The Marinette a magnetic needle floating upon a straw laid on 
the surface of a glass of water. 

8. Prince Henry "The Navigator" (1394-1460).— The 
Portuguese, diverted by their maritime interests from the political 
union of the Iberian peninsula, were the first to turn the invention 
of the compass to their own profit. They were the pioneer ex- 
plorers and discoverers. Under Prince Henry, called *' The 
Navigator," (Henry of Viseu) a member of the reigning house 
of Avis, an impulse was early given to exploration. Whether the 
motive actuating the Portuguese monarchs was simply to get negro 
slaves and gold from the African coast, or whether they were 
driven by a desire for a more definite and scientific knowledge of 
mysterious Africa, the results were the same. 

Well educated and alert. Prince Henry was in possession of 
information sufficiently detailed and reliable to warrant the con- 
clusion that by pushing his expeditions far enough a southern end 



BARTHOLOMEW DIAS 251 

of Africa might be reached. Already the Catalan, James Ferrer, 
about 1340, had brought back gold-dust from the African coast, 
near the river Oro, and about 1360, sailors from Dieppe had set 
up a station upon the coast of Liberia. In 1402, the Norman, John 
of Bethencourt, took possession of the Canary Islands, and left 
them to his nephews, from whom they passed to Spain. Prince 
Henry was, moreover, familiar with the details of the journey of 
the Venetian, Marco Polo, who, in 1298, from his own experi- 
ences had set forth his account of the obstacles which stood in 
the way of the penetration of Asia by the east, and advised the 
rounding of Africa. 

That Prince Henry founded at Sagres, near Cape Saint Vincent, 
a school of navigation, and sent out regular exploring expeditions 
is no longer accepted as true. Nevertheless, his adventurous 
ships continued to set sail. In 1412, Cape Non was reached, and 
in 141 5, Cape Bojador. Plenary indulgence was promised by 
Pope Martin V, in 1432, to all explorers who got beyond that 
point, and to Portugal the ownership of all the lands which were 
discovered. Thus encouraged, Gil Eannez rounded it in 1433, 
and in 1443 Cape Blanco was charted. In 1446, the discovery of 
Cape Verde followed, and in 1448, Sierra Leone. Prince Henry 
died in 1460, a circumstance which possibly explains why the 
equator was not crossed before 1471. 

The most significant voyage of this period, however, is that of 
Diego Cam in 1484. He set out in accordance with the orders of 
king Alphonso V for the purpose of establishing Portuguese settle- 
ments on the Gulf of Guinea, and took with him the most widely 
informed cosmographer of the time, the German, Martin Behaim. 
He discovered the mouth of the Congo, and believed that the 
African coast fell oif to the southeast. So firm was this belief 
that he conjectured about where the extremity of the continent was 
located. 

9. Bartholomew Dias (1455-1500). — King John of Portugal 
charged one of the most experienced navigators of Portugal with 
the responsibility of finding this point of land. Two vessels of 
a new expedition penetrated south of Cape Frio in i486. After 
passing the extreme southern point of Africa, out of sight of land, 
Dias sailed east and then north, and actually landed in the Bay 
of Saint Sebastian; but the hostile attitude of the natives com- 



252 GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

pelled him to turn back. Nevertheless he and his companions 
were the first to double the south end of Africa. In the neighbor- 
hood of Cape Agulhas he met with a successsion of storms, and 
gave to the point of land to the westward the name of " Cape 
of Storms," but upon his return in 1487, King John changed the 
name to that of the " Cape of Good Hope." 

10. The Mission of Covilham. — At the same time John II 
sent the diplomatist, Peter of Covilham, and his companion, Al- 
phonso of Paiva, to determine by way of Egypt the location of 
the country of Prester John, the Negus of Abyssinia. Paiva soon 
disappeared, but Covilham traveled through Egypt, passed to 
Goa and to Calcutta in India, and then by way of Africa to 
Zanzibar, where he collected information upon the possibility of 
rounding Africa which is said to have been used by Vasco da 
Gama in the discovery of the route around the Cape of Good 
Hope to India. In 1490 he was in Abyssinia at the court of the 
Bishop Prince of the Jacobite religion (the Christian Church of 
Abyssinia traced its origin to the Apostle James). Although well 
received, he was nevertheless detained by the Prince until his 
death there in 1540, but he was able to hand over his account to 
John II, who made preparations for a final enterprise and then 
died. 

11. Vasco da Gama (1469-1524).— The king had designated 
as the leader of this expedition a young Portuguese nobleman of 
an illustrious family, Vasco da Gama. Da Gama set sail under 
the reign of Emanuel the Fortunate, upon a veritable crusade, 
with three vessels, one of which, the Saint Gabriel, had one hun- 
dred and sixty men for a crew, among whom were ten criminals 
condemned to death ; but thanks to his sang-froid. Da Gama was 
able to triumph over the superstitious terrors of his sailors and 
over the tempests of the southern hemisphere. He rounded the 
Cape of Good Hope, coasted along the extremity of Africa, sighted 
the coast of Natal on Christmas day, 1497, then the coasts of 
Sofala and of Mozambique, and arrived, finally, beyond Zanzibar 
at Melinda, where the Mussulman sultan furnished him an ex- 
perienced pilot, Canaca. 

12. Da Gama in India (1498). — For a stretch of seven 
hundred leagues without deviation Canaca conducted the Portu- 
guese rapidly along the coast of Malabar to Calcutta. The zamo- 



THE SECOND VOYAGE OF VASCO DA GAMA 253 

rin of that city, an Indian prince, who was one of the vassals 
of the Mongol (Mogul) emperors at Delhi, ruled over the whole 
southeast coast of India. In spite of the opposition of the trading 
Arabians of Egypt, who up to that time had enjoyed the monopoly 
of furnishing to Alexandria and to the Venetians the prod- 
ucts of India, he signed a commercial treaty with Vasco da 
Gama, who made a triumphant return to Lisbon in 1499. Here 
he received the title of Grand Admiral of the Indies, and exercised, 
from this time on, an actual control over the colonies and the 
shipping interests. It was this voyage that opened up to the Portu- 
guese an empire of vast commercial possibilities. 

13. Expedition of Alvarez Cabrai (1500-1501).— King 
Emanuel resolved to turn to his own profit this great success, and 
sent out a new expedition under Alvarez Cabrai to follow up 
Da Gama's discoveries. Bartholomew Dias, who was a member 
of the expedition, drew up the instructions, and was eager for the 
creation of colonies in the newly discovered lands. Cabrai sailed 
w^ith a fleet of thirty vessels and fifteen hundred men. Keeping 
well out into the Atlantic, according to his instructions, he dis- 
covered, probably by chance, a real continent, which he called 
Santa Cruz, April 23, 1500, and which on account of its forests, 
from 1502 on, took the name of Brazil. The ownership of this 
new land was complicated, however, by a papal decision. Pope 
Alexander VI, after the discoveries of Columbus, had granted 
to Spain the possession of all unknown lands situated to the 
west of a meridian cutting the Atlantic Ocean about three hundred 
and seventy leagues beyond the Azores. Yet Cabrai planned 
to occupy this vast land which was judged to lie within the limit 
of influence reserved to Portugal. 

He sent back a ship to Lisbon with an account of his voyage, 
and then continued his original course to India. In a storm off 
the south coast of Africa he lost Bartholomew Dias, and returned 
from Calcutta to Portugal in 1501 with a great cargo of spices, 
but without having been able to make any definite settlement. 

14. The Second Voyage of Vasco da Gama. — Vasco da 
Gama was then put in charge of a new expedition to India, and 
set sail in 1502 with a squardon of twenty vessels, taking with 
him a great number of colonists. The colonies of Sofala and o£ 
Mozambique were established by the way; then, once in India, 



254 GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

he bombarded Calcutta and took possession of Cochin, 1503. 
Henceforth, the colonial power of Portugal was assured and 
upon the ruins of the Oriental commerce of Venice it established 
for sixty years a monopoly of the European spice trade with the 
Orient. 

15. The Government of Viceroys. — Yet the resistance of 
the Arabians, urged on by the Venetians, lasted for a long time, 
and, in order to maintain his position, Emanuel sent an experienced 
soldier, Francis of Almeyda, with twenty-two vessels and fifteen 
thousand men. His lieutenants were his son Lawrence, Alphonse 
of Albuquerque, and Ferdinand Soarez. In spite of the defeat 
and death of Lawrence, Almeyda conquered the Rajahs of 
Cananor and of Cochin. Soarez discovered Madagascar, and a 
great victory over the Mussulmans' fleet near the island of Diu 
established beyond question the authority of Almeyda, the first 
Viceroy. It was at this moment that King Emanuel substituted 
for him his cousin Alphonse of Albuquerque. Almeyda returned 
to Spain, and died miserably on the coast of Africa. 

16. Conquests of Albuquerque (1508-1515). — ^Almeyda was 
above all things a soldier, and attached only a limited importance 
to colonization. Albuquerque, on the other hand, aimed at found- 
ing a great colonial empire for Portugal. He made himself 
master of the island of Ormuz, and as a result, of the Persian 
Gulf and the pearl fisheries. Viceroy in 1508, he took Goa in 

15 10. Entering it in the midst of the splendors of an antique 
triumph he surrounded himself with luxurious magnificence in 
order to made an impression upon the imagination of the Orientals, 
sent Portuguese vessels to Malacca, which he took possession of in 

15 1 1, and signed treaties of commerce with Siam and the Malay 
princes of the Islands of Sonda. He returned, in 15 12, just in 
time to save Goa. He was repulsed before Aden, but succeeded 
in spite of this in closing the outlet of the Red Sea to Egyptian 
vessels. Indeed, in order to ruin Egypt he is said to have con- 
ceived a plan for diverting the course of the Nile so as to leave 
Egypt itself barren. Slandered and misrepresented to King 
Emanuel in spite of the justice of his administration, which had 
been the great means of influence in the Indies, he died in 15 15 
when he was on the point of returning by sea to Portugal, where 
he had been recalled. If the voyage of Da Gama had opened 



THE PRECURSORS OF COLUMBUS 255 

up the possibility of a vast commercial empire to Portugal in the 
Spice Islands, the conquests of Albuquerque insured its firm 
possession. 

17. Camoèns. — Under King Sebastian the Portuguese con- 
tinued to maintain their settlements in Europe, Africa» and Asia, 
together with their monopoly of the spice trade, but upon his 
death in 1578, at Alcacer in Morocco, where he had imprudently 
ventured for the purpose of converting the Mussulmans^ the way 
was prepared for the subordination of Portugal to Spain. A little 
after this, in 1580, there died at Lisbon the poet of the conquest, 
Camoèns. 

Luis de Camoëns was born at Lisbon in 1524. He was already 
in his youth a celebrated poet, but as the result of a disgrace at 
court, he took service in Africa. Here he was imprisoned for a 
time, and read the chronicles of Barros and of Castaneda con- 
cerning the conquests of the Portuguese, and conceived an epic 
poem which he called Os Lusiades, " the children of Lusus," the 
name of the legendary founder of the Portuguese nation. Set 
free, sent to the Indies, arrested there again, then sent back to 
Macao, he composed there the first fourteen cantos of his poem. 
He was recalled to Goa in 1561, was shipwrecked and imprisoned, 
and, after having completed *' the Lusiades," came back to Lisbon 
in 1570, where he lived in obscurity and poverty. The publication 
of his poem, a brilliant blending of history and fancy, in 1572, 
did not draw him out of his precarious mode of life, and the date 
of his death can be fixed only approximately at 1580. He is the 
personification of Portuguese genius, which reached so high, a point 
in the XVI century, only to play, from that time on, a subordinate 
part in the history of the world. 

18. The Precursors of Columbus. — ^The Portuguese, Cam, 
Dias, and Da Gama, had discovered the road to India by the 
east. The Spaniards in seeking a route by the west took posses- 
sion of America. Without going back to antiquity, which set forth 
the problem rather obscurely, it was the accounts given by the 
Venetian, Marco Polo (1252-1323), that furnished an mcentivc 
to discovery. Having lived among the Mongols, penetrated into 
China, discovered Japan, and visited the islands of the Sonda, he 
had returned to Constantinople by way of India and Persia. His 
related adventures opened fresh discussions upon the subject of 



256 GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

the discovery of new ways of reaching the land of spices. The 
most profound thinkers felt that it might be reached to the west- 
ward. This was the opinion expressed in Cardinal Pierre 
d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, which was based on Roger Bacon's Opus 
Majus. Bacon, in turn, seems to have misunderstood what Seneca 
said regarding the distance from Spain to India. The supposititious 
account of the Zeni brothers was not written until the XVI 
century, however, and even the portulans, or the Portuguese com- 
mercial sailing directions, upon which the New World is indi- 
cated, are later than Columbus. 

The Icelanders, it is true, who were established in Greenland 
perhaps in the XI century, had made a settlement upon the east 
coast of North America, and had made some transient settle- 
ments in Vineland, in the region near where later the first English 
colonists settled in America, but their voyages remained for a 
long time almost unknown. It was not until 1474, the year that 
the king of Portugal, Alphonso V, requested Toscanelli, a learned 
astronomer and physician of Florence, to furnish him with direc- 
tions for reaching Asia by the west, that we may date the first 
rational attempts which ended in the discovery of America. This 
letter in reply to the king of Portugal, based upon the assumed 
sphericity of the earth, pointed out as " the route which would 
lead to the land of spices " a continuous sailing to the west, across 
the Atlantic Ocean, and he was the author of the map made use 
of by Columbus on the voyage which resulted in the discovery of 
America. 

19. Christopher Columbus. — Christopher Columbus, who was 
to realize the projects which had been vaguely conceived before 
him, came of a very obscure family of Genoa. His father, the 
weaver Domenico Columbo, sprang from Quinto, in Genoese 
territory, and had three sons, Christopher, Bartholomew, and 
Diego. 

Columbus, born probably about 1446, applied himself early to 
maritime life, for in 1473 he was in Portugal, where he married 
and took up cartography and navigation. He met there the ship- 
owners who were established at Madeira, and who were absorbed 
in the problem of finding a sea route to the west, the Perestrello. 
In 1477, he visited England,* in 1482, Iceland and Guinea. At 
that time he knew the geographer, Martin Behaim, and corre- 



THE DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS 257 

sponded with Toscanelli, who died in 1482, and who, before his 
death, urged Columbus, in 1476, to attempt the V05^age to the 
west. 

But Columbus also knew the Imago Mundi of Pierre d'Ailly, 
which foretold the end of the world. The Genoese navigator, 
at once a mystic and a man of affairs, dreamed of acquiring 
enough gold, thanks to a short route to the Indies, to redeem 
the sepulcher of Christ, and to destroy the infidels. He submitted 
his plans to John H, who judged them to be visionary. He was 
well enough received at the court of Lisbon, but his impatience 
carried him away, and he returned to Spain in 1484. 

20. Columbus in Spain. — In i486, he was again at the court 
of their Most Catholic Majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella, and 
even during 1491 at Santa Fé; but the theologians showed them- 
selves indifferent to his ideas, and, what was even more important, 
the practical utility of the plan which he offered was the subject 
of serious doubt. His brother Bartholomew was not any more 
fortunate in having it accepted in France and in England. For 
the time being Columbus was in despair, and set out for Huelva, 
where his parents were living, but he was recalled to the presence 
of Queen Isabella, thanks to the influence of the duke Medina 
Sidonia, and also, it was reported, of John Perez, the prior of the 
Convent of Rabida, where he had received asylum and w^here he 
had explained his ideas. A new commission under the influence 
of the cardinal-archbishop Mendoza, and of the Grand Treasurer 
Louis of Saint-Angel, decided that Castile should take part in the 
expedition, January, 1492. 

The expedition was delayed by the difficulties which were 
raised by Columbus. But he succeeded finally in imposing his 
demands upon the most Catholic kings in the capitulations of 
Santa Fé, April 17th, 1492. By its terms this mariner, without 
birth and without illustrious past, a mere adventurer after all, 
obtained the hereditary and almost princely title in Spain of 
Admiral, the rights of Viceroy over the lands to be conquered, 
with a tenth part of the revenue from precious metals and colonial 
products, and finally, the sole right of attempting the route to 
the west. 

2L The Departure of Columbus. — For various reasons 
Queen Isabella furnished only a part of the sum which Columbus 



258 GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

required. It was indeed but a slight sum : one million maravedis, 
in purchasing value about eighty thousand dollars in the money 
of the present time. He asked for three caravels, small vessels 
only partly decked over. The town of Palos, to satisfy a fine, 
had to furnish two of them. As for Columbus, he contributed a 
part of the sum which had been intrusted to him by several silent 
partners, but it was difficult to secure sailors who were not fright- 
ened by the mysterious character of the voyage, and so it was 
thought necessary at first to have recourse to prisoners. For- 
tunately, three bold masters of Palos, the brothers Alonzo, 
Francisco-Martinez, and Vincent-Janez Pinzon, assumed the re- 
sponsibility for making up the complement of the crews without 
the criminals. The Santa-Maria was under the command of 
Columbus himself, the Pinta was commanded by Alonzo and 
Martinez, the Nina by Vincent. Of the ninety sailors the ma- 
jority were Spaniards. With impressive religious solemnity the 
departure took place Friday, August 3d, 1492. 

22. The First Voyage (August 3, 1492-March 15, 1493). 
— The fleet directed its course toward the Canaries, and from 
there it sailed out into the broad expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. 
Columbus observed at this time the declination of the needle of 
the compass. Then he floundered about in the Sargasso Sea. 
When the crew murmured at the persistence of west winds, 
25th of September, 1492, Columbus succeeded in reassuring 
them, but on the loth of October, the sailors talked of turning 
back for Europe. On the nth, the Admiral perceived toward 
evening the first traces of land. On the morning of the 12th, he 
saw a sandy shore belonging to an island, seemingly fertile and 
populous. Here Columbus landed. It was probably the island 
of Guanahani (Watling's Island), which he named San Salvador, 
one of the islands of the Bahamas. He proceeded from here to 
the south, and believed that he had discovered Marco Polo's 
Cipango or Japan in the island of Colba (Cuba), which he con- 
tinued to believe was a headland of Asia. Having been left by 
Alonzo and Martinez Pinzon, who were exploring the islands in 
the hope of finding gold, he touched at Haiti, which he called 
Hispaniola. He landed forty men there, and founded the settle- 
ment of Navidad, January, 1494. Joined again by the brothers 
Pinzon, he set out for Europe, arriving at the Azores in February, 



THE SECOND VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS 259 

but was driven bj^ a tempest into the mouth of the Tagus. John 
II, of Portugal, in spite of his chagrin, received him with honor 
and allowed him to depart. On the 15th of March Columbus 
made a triumphal return to Palos. From there he went to Seville, 
and thence to Ferdinand and Isabella at Barcelona, to whom he 
presented two Haitiens and some specimens of gold. 

23. The Discovery of America. — The narrative of Columbus 
took the form of a letter to their Catholic Majesties. This was 
at first widely circulated in Europe ; then, when the geographical 
errors of the Admiral became generally known, it fell into oblivion 
until 1507. As to Ferdinand, he could not understand why 
Spain should take any interest in the expeditions. This feeling 
of disappointment in the material results of this first voyage of 
Columbus was expressed a little later by the famous scholar 
Peter Martyr of Anghiera in his celebrated letters upon the dis- 
covery of America. 

24. The Line of Demarcation. — Notwithstanding, the king 
and queen resolved that Spain should profit by the discovery, and 
asked Alexander VI to guarantee them the possession of their 
new territory. The pope, by a bull of May 2d, 1493, gave to 
Spain all the lands which should be discovered west of a line 
called The Line of Marcation, drawn from pole to pole, and pass- 
ing a hundred leagues to the west of Cape Verde; to Portugal, 
all the new lands to the east of that line. Upon the demands of 
Portugal, the treaty of Tordesillas, June 7th, 1494, moved the 
line called at that time The Line of Demarcation to a point three 
hundred and seventy leagues to the west of the Cape Verde Islands. 

25. The Second Voyage of Columbus. — In the meantime, 
in September, 1493, one of the protectors of Columbus, the duke 
Medina Sidonia, advanced the expenses of a second expedition of 
seventeen vessels and twelve hundred men. The explorer took 
with him his brother Diego, a sailor already celebrated, Ponce de 
Leon, the astronomer Marchena, the physician Chanca, the his- 
torian of the voyage, and finally he was rejoined by his brother 
Bartholomew. He charted in the Lesser Antilles, Desirade, 
Dominica, Maria Galante, Guadeloupe, touched at Porto Rico, 
and on the 22d of November, 1493, landed at Hispaniola. Here 
the Indians had killed to the last man the colonists of Navidad. 
Columbus took cruel vengeance and re-established the town under 



26o GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 

the name of Isabella, which he placed under the authority of his 
brother Diego. Then he set sail to the west and discovered 
Santa Gloria (Jamaica) . He returned to Cuba, which he continued 
to mistake for the Asiatic continent, then back again to Hayti, 
and, assuming that Ferdinand had authorized the free exploration 
of the new lands, he left his brother Bartholomew as chief in 
command and returned to Spain to defend his monopoly, which 
was involved in troubles which he had not known how to prevent, 
and which had necessitated a first investigation by a royal agent, 
John de Aguado. Upon his return to Spain he met violent opposi- 
tion from the bishop of Badajoz, John Roderic de Fonseca, and 
obtained, after great difficulty only, permission to undertake a third 
voyage. 

26. Columbus' Third Voyage. — He set sail in May, 1498, 
landed first at Trinidad, then on the coast of Paria in Venezuela, 
and suspected there that he was in the neighborhood of a great river. 
He then turned back to Hispaniola. His brothers had substituted 
there the village of San Dominica for that of Isabella, and a 
Spanish faction had been formed against them. Columbus was 
no more successful in obtaining obedience and their Catholic 
Majesties ordered an inquiry by John de Bobadilla, who made 
the three brothers embark for Europe. According to a tradition, 
which today seems to be questioned, Columbus refused to lay aside 
the irons with which he had been loaded and landed with chains 
on his feet at Cadiz. Isabella was angry at the insult which had 
been put upon the Admiral, and Bobadilla, was recalled but was 
replaced by another direct agent from Spain (November, 1500) 
named Ovando. 

27. The Last Voyage and Death of Columbus. — It was 
almost as a private citizen that Columbus made his fourth and 
last voyage in May, 1502, and it was the most disastrous. Driven 
from Hispaniola in the midst of a tempest by Ovando, he touched 
at Jamaica, at Yucatan, and coasted along the shore of New 
Granada from Cape Gracias a Dios as far as Veragua, where 
he found a little gold; but he obstinately believed that he had 
arrived at Cathay, and made his companions swear that they would 
always affirm that they had touched Asia. Finally, left to his 
own resources, and for a time in distress at Jamaica, he had to 
return to Spain in November, 1504. 



LAST VOYAGE AND DEATH OF COLUMBUS 261 

Affairs were going badly with him. His health was profoundly 
affected ; Isabella died some time after his return ; the convention of 
Santa Fé had not been put into execution for a long time, and 
Ferdinand proposed to him important compensations, which seemed 
to the Admiral little short of ridiculous. He presented himself 
in person before the king to plead his cause, then died, filled with 
bitterness, at Valladolid (May 21st, 1506). His son Ferdinand 
had been able to get together at great expense an admirable library, 
which still exists, but in fragments. 

He was already forgotten in Spain, and his name was almost 
unknown in Europe. In 1537, his remains were sent to San 
Domingo, and the Spaniards on leaving the island transported 
them to Havana. His heart was brought back to Genoa, his 
native town. Columbus was at the same time a mystic and a 
man of affairs. Not above lying in order to advance his ideas, he 
was not able to detach himself from liis first errors; his heroic 
determination, and his audacious genius moved forward the hour 
for the discovery of America; but personally, he touched there 
without discovering it, still maintaining that he had reached Asia, 
and it may be said without injustice that his work was greater 
than the man. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD 

1. The Historical Perspective. — In order to get a proper his- 
torical perspective in considering the events which constitute the 
conquest of the New World, it is desirable to have some well- 
known period in mind as a background for the sake of comparison, 
and for historical proportion. To this end, the following quota- 
tion will briefly serve the purpose. *' The Spanish colonial em- 
pire lasted three centuries, a period nearly as long as that of the 
sway of Imperial Rome over western Europe. During these ten 
generations the language, the religion, the culture, and the po- 
litical institutions of Castile were transplanted over an area 
twenty times as large as that of the parent state. What Rome 
did for Spain, Spain in turn did for Spanish America. In sur- 
veying, therefore, the work of Spain in the New World, we 
must realize from the start that we are studying one of the great 
historical examples of the transmission of culture by the establish- 
ment of imperial domain and not as in the case of English America 
by the growth of little settlements of immigrants acting on their 
own impulse" (Bourne). 

2. The Spanish Adventurers in America. — Although he 
had discovered the New World, Columbus could not by any 
means control the instant influx of adventurers into the vast do- 
mains which he had added to the territory of the king of Spain. 
In spite of the capitulations of Santa Fé, the monopoly which 
Columbus had obtained was respected for a short time only. Ex- 
plorers and others in search of gold soon pressed on in his foot- 
steps. Between 1499 and 1508 adventurers explored the coast of 
Paria, descended as far as the mouth of the Amazon, and finally 
one of them (Solis) landed in Mexico (1508). After sailing 
south during the following year he reached Cape San Roque, and in 
15 15 was killed in attempting to ascend the Rio de la Plata, in the 

263 



NU5ÎEZ DE BALBOA 263 

belief that he had reached the extremity of the continent. From 
now on, the gold-seekers swarmed into Hispaniola and Darien, 
and King Ferdinand directed his attention to the establishment of 
a kind of balance sheet, or schedule of discoveries, by creating at 
Seville a Bureau of Commerce {casa de contratacion) , which 
was later placed under the authority of the Council of the 
Indies. 

3. Ovando and Diego Columbus. — At Hispaniola things be- 
gan to take a prosperous turn. Ovando kept the adventurers 
satisfied, knew how to put to best advantage the wonderfully fertile 
soil, and acclimated the sugar cane there, but he was guilty of 
many acts of savage violence, and when he conceived the idea of 
parceling out the natives themselves by concessions made to Euro- 
peans {repartiînientos) in order to compel them to submit to 
forced labor which was repugnant to their physical constitution and 
to the habits of their daily life, some migrated to Cuba, others 
remained to die, and in ten years the population decreased nine- 
tenths. The Dominican, Las Casas, pleaded the cause of the 
natives, but he ultimately found that slavery and the trade in 
negroes was the only alternative. Diego Columbus, the son of 
the Admiral, was named Viceroy in Hispaniola in 1508, and 
exercised his office with Castilian pomp until 1521. As a partial 
remedy for the continued violence and the never-ending complaints 
which followed, there was established at Santo Domingo in 1521 
the supreme tribunal of the Real Audiencia which governed a great 
part of the western Indies, and this was made subordinate to the 
Council of the Indies in 1524. 

4. Nunez de Balboa. — A colony of the more daring adven- 
turers had pushed farther, and established a station at Santa 
Maria in Darien, the most resolute among whom, Nunez de 
Balboa, had secured an ascendency over his companions and over 
the Caribbeans of the neighborhood. Thanks to the fear which 
he inspired, the Indians informed him that layers of gold were 
to be found on the shores of an immense and easily accessible 
ocean, and for the purpose of securing this treasure, with one 
hundred and ninety volunteers, Balboa crossed the Isthmus of 
Darien to the Bay of San Miguel. Spellbound with admiration in 
the presence of the ocean which spread out before his eyes, Balboa 
advanced into the waves, raised his standard, and took possession 



264 THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD 

of the sea in the name of the king of Spain (15 13). But the 
precious metal seemed to flee before the adventurers, and now, 
lands lying vaguely to the south w^ere spoken of as the '* land of 
gold" {El Dorado). This is the first mention of Peru. Balboa 
did not dare to venture farther, however, and retraced his steps 
only to find a titular governor, named by Ferdinand, while Balboa 
himself had to be content with the inferior title of adelantado. 
Placed in charge of a second expedition, he launched upon the 
Pacific a flotilla of barks called '' brigantines," light and easy to 
take to pieces; but for one reason or another, he was not able to 
accomplish the object of his voyage, and upon his return the gov- 
ernor, actuated by motives of either jealousy or policy, had him 
seized by one of his followers, and after accusing him of absurd 
crimes, had Balboa beheaded. In 15 18, Panama was established 
upon the Pacific and became the rendez-vous for adventurers who 
gave South America to Spain, and who are known under the 
Spanish name of conquistadores. 

5. Amerigo Vespucci.— Loftier aims guided the expeditions 
of Amerigo Vespucci, Sebastian Cabot, and Magellan. The 
Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, an agent of the Italian house 
of Berardi established at Seville, took part in a series of expedi- 
tions made at first in behalf of Spain, and later of Portugal. 
The history of the Spanish expedition (1497- 1499) from Cape 
Gracias a Dios to Florida is under some suspicion as to its genuine- 
ness, but in 1502 and 1503, Vespucci certainly explored the coasts 
of Brazil. It was the letters in which Vespucci told, not without 
extraordinary details, of his adventure that were the first text 
which conjectured that the land discovered between the Amazon 
and Florida was a New World by reason of its physical aspect, 
its inhabitants, and its productions and not Asia, as Columbus had 
insisted. His third letter, published at Vincenza in 1507, gave to 
Waldseemiiller, a member of a Lotharingian society of scholars 
at Saint-Die, the idea of suggesting as the name for the New 
World '' America." This name was adopted, little by little, 
without there being any ingratitude to Columbus, or usurpation 
on the part of Vespucci, who died in Spain in 15 12. 

6. John Cabot's Voyages. — Giovanni Gavotta, or John 
Cabot, who was either a Venetian or a Genoese, like Vespucci 
sought to determine the true nature of the lands whose existence 



MAGELLAN'S VOYAGE 265 

had been revealed by the first voyage of Columbus. Indeed, he 
seems to have had the idea of '' refinding " the lands that had been 
forgotten since the Scandinavian expeditions, and obtained letters- 
patent from Henry VII of England. Having set sail from Bristol 
he probably discovered Cape Breton Island, which he called 
"the land first seen," Pruna Vista (1497), and proceeded south 
along the shore as far as Florida. Cabot thus was the first to 
see the new continent, on which Columbus did not land until 1498. 
His second voyage is less well known, and had for its aim the 
discovery of a passage to the Indies to the northward. It is 
thought that he got as far as Hudson's Bay. His son Sebastian 
entered the service of Spain, and was a pilot-in-chief of the realm 
from 15 13 to 1524. 

7. Magellan's Voyage of Circumnavigation. — This passage 
to the northwest remained a problem until the XIX century. It 
was not the same with the passage to the southwest, which was dis- 
covered by the Portuguese, Fernando Magalhaës, called Magel- 
lan. Like Gama, Almeyda, and Albuquerque, he sprang from 
one of the old Portuguese families who had been tempted by 
the glory of expeditions beyond the sea. Unable to take service 
in Portugal, he obtained from Charles V a flotilla of five ships, 
manned by experienced sailors, among whom was the Basque pilot, 
Sebastian del Cano, and sailed, in 15 19, from San Lucar de 
Barrameda at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. He perceived that 
America prolonged itself below the Rio de la Plata, and after a 
rigorous winter spent on the shore of Patagonia, during w^hich 
he was obliged to punish pitilessly several of the Spanish officers 
who had revolted against his control, he won, in 1521, the 
narrow opening which is today called the Strait of Magellan, 
and passed out into the ocean which Balboa had already seen nine 
years earlier fifteen hundred leagues to the north. The navigator 
called it the Pacific Ocean because after the boisterous seas of the 
Strait it was relatively calm. 

Bent upon keeping to themselves the knowledge which they 
had acquired, Magellan's ships turned north, a circumstance which 
delayed for half a century the discovery of Australia. He sailed 
through Micronesia, and 1521 was killed in a combat with 
the natives while attempting to land upon the island of Mata in 
the Philippines. Two vessels only of the original expedition 



266 THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD 

had been saved, and Sebastian del Cano took command of these, 
sent the Trinidad to Panama, and on the Victory crossed the 
Malay Archipelago, the Strait of Sunda, and the entire stretch of 
the Indian Ocean. On the 20th of March, 1522, he rounded 
Africa, and on September 6th, he re-entered the harbor of San 
Lucar. Charles V gave him a triumphal reception ; had presented 
to him a globe of gold with the device: Primus circumdedisti me, 
and sent him back to occupy the Moluccas, which the king of Spain 
held were placed outside the line of demarcation which limited to 
the east the lands conceded to Portuguese influence. Sebastian 
del Cano died during this second voyage; but the first voyage 
around the world had demonstrated in a positive manner that an 
immense continent stretched between Europe and Asia. 

8. Velasquez in Cuba. — By 1522 the Spaniards had already 
begun its conquest. Diego Columbus had Porto Rico occupied 
by Ponce de Leon in 1508, and Florida in 15 12. Diego sent 
Velasquez to Cuba, and he took with him a soldier of fortune, 
later destined to great adventures, Fernando Cortez. The resist- 
ance of the Cubans, stirred up by the Carib emigrants from 
Hispaniola, had already become serious, and by force of his 
cruelties Velasquez triumphed over these unfortunate people, 
whom he accused of treason against the king of Spain; but he 
was mistaken in the w^ord, it was the inveterate hatred which the 
name of Spaniard inspired. Nothing illustrates this better than 
an incident told of one of the chiefs. The Cacique Hatouen had 
fled from Hispaniola to Cuba, was captured by Velasquez, and con- 
demned to death by fire, but he was promised that if he would ac- 
cept the Christian faith he should have life, not in this world to 
be sure, but a paradise and happiness without end in the world 
to come. *' In that paradise," he asked, '' are there any Span- 
iards?" ''Any Spaniards! Spaniards! by all means!" Such 
was the sense of the response. " Then," he cried, " I do not want 
to go there! " 

Master of the island of Cuba, Velasquez soon conceived the 
idea of occupying the neighboring coast of Mexico. Yucatan had 
already been touched on in 1508, and ten years later when the 
Spaniards landed near the island of Cozumel, to their great 
astonishment they found traces of a civilization relatively well 
advanced. The governor of Cuba sought to make capital of this 



LANDING OF THE SPANIARDS IN MEXICO 267 

information, and prepared an expedition for the conquest of this 
*' New Spain." 

9. Fernando Cortez, the Conqueror. — ^There was at hand 
a man of proved ability. Fernando Cortez, born at Medellin in 
Estramadura, 1485, was destined at first for the study of law. He 
had led the life of a student, now serious, now turbulent, at 
Salamanca and had ended in being sent to Hispaniola, whence 
he followed Velasquez to Cuba. In spite of numerous quarrels 
which he had with the governor, he made his fortune there, 
and the governor signed with him an agreement for the occu- 
pation of Mexico. Cortez, who realized his own ability, was 
prepared to begin the adventure, but this zeal troubled Velasquez 
as to the part which his lieutenant might play in the new conquest, 
and he forthwith forbade him to leave ; but it was too late. 
The governor's order was disregarded and the flotilla left the 
port of San Antonio February i8th, 15 19, with eleven barks, about 
eight hundred men, of whom six hundred were foot soldiers, 
sixteen cavaliers, thirty-two artillerymen, thirteen crossbowmen, 
and fourteen pieces of cannon, besides native emigrants from Cuba. 
Cortez' standard bore a red cross, so that this expedition of 
buccaneers sailed under the guise of a crusade. More than this^ 
by a circumstance rare enough in the history of the conquistadors, 
the almoner, Bartholomew Olmedo, attempted now and then to 
preach gentleness. 

10. The Landing of the Spaniards in Mexico. — Cortez 
landed on the island of Cozumel, which was occupied by the 
Mayas of Yucatan. He found there an interpreter in the person 
of Geronimo de Aguilar, one of his compatriots who had been 
held a prisoner since 151 1. The Spaniards then proceeded along 
the coast as far as Tabasco, which was inhabitated by the Nahuas, 
whom the sight of horses, unknown until then in America, struck 
with a superstitious terror. They gave hostages, among them a 
woman, who quickly learned Spanish, and under the name of 
Marina became an indispensable guide to the expedition. Cortez 
learned then that farther to the north there was a people called 
the Aztecs, who had invaded the country and had extended its 
rule over the most ancient tribes, especially over the Culuas. 
Their emperor, Montezuma II, had heard of the arrival of the 
strangers, and at first believed that he saw in them a materializa- 



268 THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD 

tion of one of the solar myths of the Aztec religion, and the 
people recognized in Cortez the Messiah Quetzalcoatl, who, it was 
prophesied, would come from the east and would overthrow the 
religion which demanded human sacrifice from the people. The 
emperor was divided between the necessity of conciliating these 
unknown and perhaps divine strangers, and the desire to keep 
them at a distance. But the conquistador was seeking for quite 
another thing than honors and offerings, and he resolved to subdue 
the Aztecs by force, inasmuch as they were better organized for 
resistance than the Caribbeans. 

11. Mexican Civilization. — The historians of the conquest 
have based their accounts of the Mexican civilization upon in- 
formation borrowed from the conquistadors. The hieroglyphics 
of the monuments were at first studied with great care only to be 
neglected until the XIX century. Very soon the upper class 
Aztecs, rapidly taking on the Spanish culture, gave their atten- 
tion to paraphrasing into Castilian the ancient historical monu- 
ments of their country, and in this way the annals of Chiautitlan 
(536-1519) were translated about 1570. They recount the his- 
tory of the ancient race of Toltecs, conquered only in the XIV 
century by a California tribe of Aztecs, much inferior to them in 
civilization, who at first, in taking possession of the country of 
Anahuac, or the Mexican plateau, had bequeathed to the van- 
quished their laws and their customs. 

The personal domain of the emperor extended along the lake 
of Texcoco, or Mexico. Of a religious origin, their dogmas were 
those of all primitive religions, and the adoration of the forces 
of nature, especially of the sun, had given birth to a complicated 
polytheism. The Christian missionaries claimed, indeed, to have 
found analogies to the Christian religion, the flood, hell, purgatory, 
and the sacrament; but inasmuch as that was especially a period 
of propagandist activity, there is really too little of the details 
of Mexican culture known to insist very strongly upon the reality 
of these resemblances. The best known myth is that of a destroy- 
ing deity, associated doubtless with human sacrifices, which the 
natural mildness of the Mexicans rendered exceptional, and this 
complicated cult gave rise to a rather important artistic movement. 
The teocallis (temples), built in four, six, and seven stages, had the 
appearance of pyramids, and some of these immense fortified 



EXPEDITION OF NARVAËZ AGAINST CORTEZ 269 

platforms still remain. Sculpture served for the execution of 
bas-reliefs, and of hieroglyphics of a primitive execution. The 
ruins of Tehuantepec, discovered in 1837, and of Yucatan, recently 
explored, have permitted a reconstruction of the Mexican cities 
with their obelisks, their feather mosaics, their hieratic statues, 
and their monuments, characterized by the use of the arch and 
moulding upon wood and covered with hieroglyphic inscrip- 
tions. 

12. The March of Cortez upon Mexico. — Cortez found him- 
self in the presence of a well-established civilization, but one 
which lacked patriotic unity. The hatred of the vassal tribes 
for the Aztec Empire was, besides, an important contribution to 
the superiority of the arms and discipline of the Europeans. For 
himself Cortez had his own invincible resolution, and had assured 
a base of operations by founding Villa Rica (Vera Cruz), whence, 
refusing to yield the command to Francisco Garay, delegated to 
him by Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, he sent to request from 
Spain the supreme management of the conquest. In order to cut 
off the retreat of deserters he ordered his men to beach the ships, 
and in August, 15 19, he directed his march toward the highlands. 
The tribes hostile to Montezuma came to the European camp 
in great numbers. Alone among them the republicans of Tlaxcala, 
fearing for their own independence, directed against the invaders 
two attacks, one by day, the other by night in order to take from 
the strangers who had come from the east the protection of the 
sun ; but the horses and the firearms of the Europeans triumphed 
over the intrepid courage of the Tlaxcalans, and they soon agreed 
to furnish provisions and a contingent of soldiers. When Cortez 
pillaged and destroyed the holy city of Cholula, Montezuma lost 
all hope of resistance, and admitted the Spaniards into Mexico 
in November, 15 19. 

13. The Expedition of Narvaëz Against Cortez. — Cortez 
abused this unexpected good-will, however, and under the pretext 
that an agent of Montezuma, Qualpopoca, threatened Villa Rica, 
he had the emperor seized and kept as a hostage. Then he put 
to death a certain number of Mexican chieftains in order to 
frighten the people, who were already terrified by the audacity of 
the conquistadors; but the conqueror really had far more to 
fear from Velasquez, for the governor of Cuba had intrusted 



270 THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD 

eighteen vessels and twenty-five hundred men to Panfilo Narvaëz, 
v^ho appeared before Villa Rica in April, 1520. Upon the re- 
ceipt of the first news of his peril, Cortez took with him eighty 
Europeans and his allies of Tlaxcala. Behind him he left the 
remainder of his Spanish soldiers in Mexico with his lieutenant, 
Pedro de Alvarado, and came upon Narvaëz at Campoallan. He 
surprised Narvaëz by a night attack, made him prisoner, and 
attached the newly-arrived adventurers to himself by promising to 
make them participants in the advantages which the conquerors 
had already obtained. 

14. The Lamentable Night (Noche Triste) (June 30, 
1520). — Now precisely these advantages were threatened in Mex- 
ico. At the outset the religious propaganda of the Europeans had 
been prudent, but Alvarado misunderstood the docility of the Mex- 
icans, dulled as they were by fear, and he destroyed the temples and 
put to death a great number of priests. A general uprising there- 
upon broke out in Mexico, and the people drove the Spaniards 
from the palace of Montezuma, who was himself obliged to follow 
them with several princes of his family. Thus when Cortez 
arrived at Mexico, the situation was seriously jeopardized. He 
wished, therefore, to open up negotiations, and set at liberty two 
close relatives of Montezuma, but they took up the cause of the 
rebels, and so closely pressed the Europeans that Mexico had to 
be evacuated. Before leaving, Cortez had Montezuma killed, since 
he no longer exercised any authority that was useful to the 
Spaniards. Upon the night of June 30th, and the ist of July, 
1520, an engagement took place upon the causeway of Tacuba, 
which crossed the Lake of Mexico. Three hundred of the 
Spaniards were cut off from their companions and massacred. 
Six hundred others perished in the retreat. This night, which 
history knows under the name of " the lamentable night," promised 
fair to be the last of the Spanish rule in Mexico. 

15. The Siege of Mexico (1521). — Although Cortez was 
closely followed, he found considerable aid in the Tlaxcalans, 
and checked the pursuit by a victory which he won near the 
celebrated oak of Otompan. There he re-formed his forces and 
took possession of Texcoco. The successor of Montezuma found 
himself blockaded when the Spaniards launched their boats upon 
the lake, but the resistance of the Mexicans was continued with 



THE DEATH OF CORTEZ 271 

great heroism in spite of the fact that from the 31st of May to 
the 13th of August, 1521, Cortez was in possession of all the 
highways. The new emperor finally made an effort to escape, but 
was taken prisoner. He was at first treated with kindness, mainly 
in the hope that a knowledge of hidden treasure might be obtained 
from him, but he told nothing, even when the conquistadors, en- 
raged, exposed his hands and his feet to the flames. The com- 
panions of Cortez had not found gold enough to suit their taste, so 
he assigned to them land and the palaces in Mexico, and divided 
among them the land still to be conquered. Yet he could obtain 
for himself from Emperor Charles V only the official title of 
Captain General of New Spain. 

16. The Death of Cortez in 1547. — In order to defend his 
authority against a lieutenant who had revolted in Honduras, 
Cortez returned by sea and was obliged to touch at Cuba. Here 
he learned that a denunciation was about to be launched against 
him by Charles V, so he returned to Spain and justified himself, 
but only obtained the confirmation of his military power. An 
audiencia (tribunal), created in Mexico, took away from him the 
judiciary and civil administration, but he was not discouraged, and 
in expeditions organized with more system than the first ones, he 
explored and colonized the coast of Mexico, and especially of Cali- 
fornia. His rights in these newly-discovered lands were con- 
tested, and he felt compelled to return to Spain. In 1541 Charles 
V employed him upon an expedition in Algiers, where he almost 
perished, and he died in 1547, at Seville, without having been able 
to return to America. Violent, greedv, and without scruples, he 
was, nevertheless, the best of the conquistadors. He had con- 
ceived the idea of leaving to the Mexicans a territory in the 
colony which he had created; for this reason, although he had 
treated them often without pity, they regretted his administration, 
less oppressive, fundamentally, than that of the Viceroys and the 
tribunals. 

In its main results the Spanish conquest was favorable to 
Mexico, if we take a broad view of the movement. Particularly 
is this true in regard to their religion when we consider the ter- 
rible burden which the continued demand for human sacrifice 
must have imposed on the people for generations. " The work 
of conversion in Mexico followed upon the heels of conquest, in- 



272 THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD 

defatigable friars devoted every moment to preaching, baptizing, 
and learning the native languages. The old religion v^ithstood the 
assaults as little as the old state; the destruction of the temples 
and idols by the conquerors, the death of many of the old ruling 
caste and of the Aztec priesthood relaxed its bonds, and the masses 
were relieved from the dreadful burden of the earlier faith. In the 
Old World the progress from actual to vicarious sacrifices for sin 
had been slow and painful through the ages ; in the New, it was 
accomplished within a single generation. The old religion had 
inculcated a relatively high morality, but its dreadful rites over- 
hung the present life like a black cloud, and for the future offered 
little consolation" (Bourne). 

17. Pizarro in Peru. — The memory of Cortez owes much to 
its favorable contrast with that of Pizarro. The four Pizarros 
were of that class of adventurers who, embroiled with Spanish 
justice, had fled to Panama in order to discover the Eldorado, 
which had been designated by Balboa under the name of Peru 
(Birà). The legend which makes a swineherd and a highway 
robber of Francisco Pizarro, seems quite plausible, and his three 
brothers, Fernando, Juan, and Gonzales, were not much better. 
The man who furnished the funds for the expedition, Luque, a 
discredited priest, had won considerable money by means of 
usury. Another companion of Pizarro, Diego de Almagro, al- 
though likewise discredited, was an old soldier whose mode of 
life was a little less base. In 1524 Francisco, Luque, and Almagro 
associated together for the discovery and the exploitation of the 
land of gold, and took a solemn oath of mutual loyalty upon the 
sacrament. With Luque's money, Pizarro loaded an old vessel 
at Panama, proceeded as far as Tumbez upon the Peruvian coast, 
and verified the accounts of the wealth of the country in precious 
metals. Almagro followed him in a leaky caravel, but for lack of 
resources, returned to Panama. After a second voyage, in 1526, 
Pizarro went to Spain. Here he obtained for himself the title of 
Captain General of the future colony of which Luque was to be 
bishop. Almagro remained simply the governor of Tumbez. In 
1530, Pizarro returned to Panama with his brothers, and about 
a hundred adventurers of the same sort. Almagro, thus over- 
reached, was only appeased by the promise of a recompense de- 
ducted in advance from the gold which they should obtain. 



PERUVIAN CIVILIZATION AND THE INCAS 273 

18. Peruvian Civilization and the Incas. — The social con- 
dition of the docile natives of Peru even more than that of the 
inhabitants of Mexico formed a sharp contrast to the brutality of 
the conquistador. The Quichuas, a copper-colored race w^ho 
inhabited Peru, owed their civilization to the dominant family of 
Incas, or lords. Their mythical origin is traced to a divine pair, 
born of the sun, the founders of Cuzco. For a long time they 
had ruled the low^er classes in patriarchal fashion and governed 
without trouble, for the rôle of the Incas was less that of a 
master than of a divine personage, responsible for assuring to 
all the life of each day. This religious socialism reposed upon a 
strict discipline, which was insured by the division of the people 
into groups of ten, fifty, one hundred, five hundred, and a thou- 
sand families, subject to the strict oversight of subordinate officers 
among them. Outside the land of the temples and of the Incas, 
property appears to have been collective. It was distributed an- 
nually according to the number of hands to be employed, and the 
fruits were divided among the family groups in proportion to 
their needs. Agriculture was their occupation par excellence, 
and honored among them. According to the traditions received 
by the conquistadors, the marvelous docility of the Peruvians lent 
itself to the operation of these arrangements of society, in which 
individualism was, so to speak, unknown. 

The civilization of this communistic nation was far more simple 
than that of Mexico. Save at a certain altitude, the Peruvians 
had huts made of boughs only, while the palace of the Incas was 
built of enormous blocks, rather low, because of earthquakes, and 
ornamented here and there with porticos and symmetrical niches. 
Their temples were covered in the interior with massive plates of 
gold representing the sun especially, while their decorative de- 
signs were limited to bands and parallel lines drawn upon pottery. 
Their sculpture was naïve and awkward, the figures recalling 
those of the Phoenicians. Inferior to the Mexicans in this re- 
spect, they were likewise below them from the point of view of 
intellect. The Quichua language is rich, indeed, but in place of 
writing they made use of the quipos (strips of cotton), the spacing 
and knots in which served them for records and to recall im- 
portant ideas to the mind. Their religion was exclusively solar, 
their rites simple and humane, and the great festivals took place 



274 THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD 

naturally at the solstices and at the equinoxes. The conquering 
Incas did not oppress the vanquished people, and tradition has it 
that the habits of industry and the absence of poverty made theft 
and murder almost unheard of. 

19. The Conquest of Peru in 1532-1533. — The conquistadors 
arrived at a fortunate moment. Cival war had just broken out 
among the Incas. The king, Huana-Capac, had had two sons: 
Huascar, born of an Inca, Atahualpa, of a Peruvian mother. 
Huascar, king of Cuzco, refused to recognize his brother as the 
king of Quito; he had been beaten and made prisoner when 
Pizarro landed in Peru, near Tumbez, and founded the town of 
San Miguel. Pizarro had fitted out three small vessels with one 
hundred and eighty men and thirty-six horsemen, and the followers 
of Huascar summoned him into the interior of the country. 
Atahualpa, who was alarmed by this, presented himself before 
Pizarro at Cajamalca, where the Inca, surrounded by three thou- 
sand Peruvians, had himself borne upon a massive throne of gold 
through the Spanish camp. One of the priests of the expedition 
called upon the king to avow himself a Catholic and the vassal 
of Charles V. He presented to him a Bible, which Atahualpa 
threw to the ground. This was a signal for an ambush, but a 
discharge of firearms frightened the Peruvians so much that they 
did not dare to crush the handful of Europeans ; those natives who 
were not massacred scattered, and Pizarro rushing upon 
Atahualpa, made him prisoner. The Inca, in order to regain 
his liberty, proposed to fill with gold to the height of a man the 
room which was serving him for a prison, and he sent messengers, 
to gather together this immense quantity of precious metal and to 
assassinate Huascar. While gold was flowing into Cajamalca, 
Almagro arrived with reinforcements from Panama. The pretext 
of a plot on the part of the Peruvians was used to bring Atahualpa 
to trial, and the ill-fated king was condemned to death, but inas- 
much as he had already allowed himself to be baptized, he was 
strangled in place of being burned in 1533. 

20. The Death of Pizarro in 1541. — From now on Francisco 
Pizarro was all-powerful in Peru. Under his government South 
America was almost entirely explored. An expedition sent out 
from Cadiz under Pedro de Mendoza ascended the Rio de la 
Plata and founded Buenos Ayres in 1535. Venezuela was like- 



THE END OF THE CONQUISTADORS 275 

wise explored. Gonzales Pizarro overcame difficulties apparently 
insuperable, crossed the Andes, and discovered the Napo, a tribu- 
tary to the Amazon. His lieutenant, Orellana, deserted him and 
descended the river in a bark; in spite of the lies told by him 
about the Eldorado and the Amazon warriors, whose name he gave 
to the river, his voyage united the discoveries of the Spaniards 
with those of the Portuguese. Finally, Pizarro sent Pedro de 
Valdivia, who, more fortunate than Almagro, established the 
colony of Santiago in 1541. This was the last expedition inspired 
by Pizarro. His ferocity, his abuse of power, and the debauched 
life which he lead at Lima, ended by discrediting him even in the 
eyes of his companions, unscrupulous as they were. A son of 
Almagro, born of an Indian mother, found among the former 
soldiers of his father, excluded as they were from the benefits 
of the conquest, an army for avenging him, and the European 
population of Lima declared themselves in his favor. The con- 
spirators penetrated into the palace of the Captain General and 
killed him, without a person raising a hand in his defense (1541). 
Almagro, the younger, portioned out Peru, while he reserved for 
himself Cuzco only. 

21. The End of the Conquistadors. — Charles V, perceiving 
that the adventurers paid little attention to his power, resolved 
at last to intervene. One of the auditors of the Council of the 
Indies at Cadiz, Vaca de Castro, was sent to Lima, where he 
displayed rare energy as a civil functionary. He obtained the 
support of Gonzales Pizarro, recently returned from his voyage 
upon the Amazon, and refused to come to terms with Almagro. 
This young man, he was only twenty-two, struggled to the end 
with a desperate energ}^, but he could not make any headway 
against the Spaniards and against treason. He was conquered, 
captured, and beheaded in 1542. The régime of the Viceroj^s 
begins here. Because of the strict enforcement of the New Laws 
for the protection of the American Indians, which the first Vice- 
roy, Nunez de Vela, had been sent from Spain to enforce, 
Gonzales Pizarro now revolted against him and conquered him 
at Quito. But Gonzales himself two years later was made prisoner 
by the president of the Audiencia of Lima, who had him executed 
in 1548. As Fernando had been made a prisoner and sent to 
Spain, Gonzales was the last conquistador. 



276 THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD 

22. The Organization of the Spanish Conquest. — The 
direct government of the crown did not correct the evils created 
by the conquerors. The great Council of the Indies (1511-1542) 
created at Cadiz did, indeed, issue ordinances to prevent the 
concentration of too great domains in the hands of the early 
occupants, and to check the oppression under w^hich the Indians 
were rapidly disappearing; but the Viceroys of Mexico and 
Lima, and the superior tribunals or audiencias, were far from the 
mother country, and justice did not appear to them due to the 
conquered people. The possessors of the commanderies, or mining 
concessions, imposed upon the natives the law of the mita, that is 
to say, the obligation to work alternately in the rôle of a miner 
and a pearl fisher. The culture of the soil was quite frequently 
forbidden altogether in order to turn all the forces of the popula- 
tion to the exploitation of the mines. In the repartimientos the 
Indians were, if possible, even more miserable, since they were 
attached to the European concession without the hope of ever 
being able to obtain their liberty. The despair of the Americans 
was so frightful that, in 15 11, the Dominican Montesino preached 
at San Domingo against the repartimientos. 

23. Las Casas. — Bartholomew Las Casas was more ardent, 
but hardly more fortunate. He had known Christopher Columbus 
and had lived in America since 1502. In 15 16, he returned to 
Spain to denounce the cruelties of the adventurers and received 
the title of the " Universal Protector of all Indians." He 
justified this singular dignity and attempted in 1520 to substitute 
at Cumana free laborers for the Caribbeans, but failed. Without 
being at all discouraged, he crossed a dozen times to Spain for 
the purpose of protecting his protégés. As Bishop of Chiapa in 
Mexico, in 1542, he roused the conquerors against him, and then 
went back to Europe to die there in 1566. He persisted in vain, 
even to the end of his life, in his generous indignation. As early 
as 15 17, he obtained the introduction of four thousand African 
negroes for colonial labor; but he did not indorse the slave trade. 
This was organized by the minister of Charles V, Chièvres, who 
secured for himself the monopoly of it. Las Casas even regretted 
bitterly that he had in any w^ay contributed to the slavery of the 
blacks in America. Yet " in estimating the accuracy of Las Casas' 
impassioned denunciations of the conquerors and his indictments of 



THE RESULTS OF THE CONQUEST 277 

colonial officials which have so uniformly been accepted by his- 
torians ever since, it is well to notice that this book was the 
result of a fierce agitation and was written before the Spaniards 
had been fifty years in the New World, where their Empire lasted 
three hundred years, and * two centuries of philanthropic legisla- 
tion have been thrown into the background by the flaming words 
which first gave it impulse ' " (Bourne). 

24. The Results of the Conquest. — This was the most 
definite result of the conquest for the conquerors : the government 
of Philip n, under which the galleons from America brought to 
Cadiz during thirty years, on an average, the sum of forty 
million pesos (possibly $120,000,000) of precious metal annually, 
ended in bankruptcy. Spanish America, exhausted of its population 
by work in the mines, profited only very little by its magnificent 
forests, its precious natural resources, and its inexhaustible soil. 
The European concessions were soon isolated in the midst of a 
desert country, without ways of communication, without means of 
transport, and placed where security was not possible except 
through tyranny. The Spaniard himself was unaccustomed to 
work, and all his imagination was directed toward the rapid acquisi- 
tion of wealth in the land beyond the sea. The conquistadors had 
made to their native land the most dangerous kind of a gift. 

Geographical science benefited at least by these expeditions at 
first so unpromising in other aspects. By 1530, the half of 
America was explored, and, since the map of Cabot, in 1499, ten 
geographers at least had agreed with sufficient exactitude upon 
the progress which had been made in the knowledge of the new 
continent. Finally, the whole of Europe benefited by the dis- 
coveries of the Spaniards. The influx of gold and silver trebled, 
it is true, the price of necessities ; but wages rose as well ; industry 
and commerce increased with the spread of capital; movable 
property became greater, and ease and luxury began to be common. 
If some cities such as Venice lost a great deal by the dislocation 
of the trade routes, the entire western side of continental Europe 
was drawn into colonial expeditions by the opening of the mari- 
time routes to India and to the New World. Spain alone was 
ultimately impoverished and demoralized by the riches of the 
Americas. 

Unsatisfactory as these results of the Spanish conquest were 



278 THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD 

from many points of view, they were nevertheless from a great 
many others very gratifying and " if we compare what the Span- 
iards accomplished in the XVI century with the work of the 
English in the XVH, we shall appreciate that although it was 
different in character and less in accord with our predilections and 
prejudices, it was, nevertheless, one of the great achievements of 
human history. They undertook the magnificent, if impossible 
task of lifting a whole race numbering millions into the sphere of 
European thought, life, and religion" (Bourne). 



CHAPTER XIX 
THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

1. The General Character of the Renaissance. — ^When the 
term Renaissance is used, it commonly refers to a period of time 
more or less definitely extending from the middle of the XIV 
century to well into the XVI century in Europe, and in Italy, to 
a more limited epoch within which she produced her literary and 
artistic masterpieces, a span of about one hundred years beginning 
early in the XV century. The popular understanding of the term 
Italian Renaissance to mean the great period of intellectual emanci- 
pation in European history is, in a large measure, justified by the 
remarkable achievements within that time which were of a strictly 
Italian character. Yet this meaning given to the word Renaissance 
is far too narrow, even if we have Italy only in mind. Through- 
out Europe, it is safe to say, whatever forces tended to make 
possible a permanent accumulation of wealth tended at the same 
time to make leisure possible. This was true, of course, whether 
the wealth was in the hands of a monastery or of a burgher in 
some commercial city, and this leisure was indispensable to cul- 
ture, although it did not always produce it. 

The history of the towns is closely bound up with the history 
of any civilization, and if we follow even the Italian Renaissance 
to its source we come inevitably to the towns or municipalities. 
Having this consideration in mind, it is safe to assert that the 
same forces which developed an Italian Renaissance in the XV 
century likewise produced a Flemish, a French, and a German 
Renaissance. 

It is improper, therefore, to limit the intellectual awakening in 
Europe to a century in Italy, or to Italy in Europe. The tendency 
of modern scholarship indeed is to lay greater emphasis upon the 
achievements in Europe of the centuries immediately preceding the 
Italian Renaissance. 

" The twelfth and thirteenth centuries offer a spectacle of a 

279 



28o THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

far more unmistakable awakening than does the so-called Renais- 
sance. These centuries witnessed the development of the towns, 
the revival of the Roman Law, the founding of the universities, 
in which the encj^clopedic works of the most learned, penetrating, 
and exacting of all ancient thinkers — Aristotle — were made the 
basis of a liberal education; and they beheld the literary birth 
of those vernacular languages which were one day to displace the 
speech of the Romans. These centuries devised, moreover, a new, 
varied, and lovely style of architecture, sculpture, and ornament 
which still fills us with wonder and delight; they carried the 
knowledge of natural things and the practical arts beyond 
the point reached by the Greeks and Romans; they sketched 
out the great career of experimental science, which was hidden 
from the ancients and which is one of the main revolutionizing 
forces of our day" (Robinson: Petrarch). 

In the Renaissance, which culminates in Europe in the XVI 
century, there are certain elements that are more or less constant 
throughout its development. There is ( i ) the ascetic ideal of 
Christianity, gradually weakened or pushed into the background 
by (2) a passionate devotion to the study of Latin and Greek 
antiquity. This devotion found expression in a very widespread 
effort to adapt the elements of classical civilization to the demands 
of the time: (a) in copying from the models of the past the Roman 
and Greek form of history, poetry, the drama, philosophy, and 
even religion; (b) in adopting the Roman law and the Roman 
forms of government; (c) in following the architectural system re- 
covered by the study of the ruined circuses, amphitheaters, temples, 
and aqueducts; (d) in attempts made to base military science 
upon the text-books of the Romans; (e) in substituting the great 
characters of antiquity for the Saints as models of morals and 
conduct, and in the choice of scenes taken from classical history 
as subjects for artistic representation in place of incidents in Bible 
story or the lives of the saints. 

It is the blending of these elements in proportions varying with 
time and place which gives form to the movement gradually de- 
veloped in Italy and in Europe, and this wide movement should 
properly be called the Renaissance. 

In Italy there are two great divisions of the subject: First, 
Humanism, or the Revival of Learning; that is to say, an intensç 



DANTE 281 

interest in the discovery, study, and preservation of the manuscripts 
of Roman and Greek antiquity; Second, the development of the 
fine arts, sculpture, painting, and architecture. In point of time 
the study of Latin manuscripts came first and was the great in- 
terest of the XIV century; then in the XV century followed the 
study of Greek, stimulated by the fall of Constantinople in 1453- 
In the treatment which follows, the» Italian Renaissance is mainly 
considered. 

2. Dante (1265-1321). — In Italy the artistic and literary 
movements were closely bound together. Giotto the painter is 
the contemporary of Dante and Petrarch, both of whom partici- 
pated in the political events of their time, Dante in the revolutions 
of Florence, and Petrarch in Rienzi's popular uprising in Rome. 

Durante Alighieri, or Dante, was a friend of Brunetto Latini, 
a man possessed of an encyclopedic mind and profoundly versed 
in the abstractions of scholasticism and in the subtilities of the- 
ology. He w^as further influenced by one of the first masters of 
the Italian canzone, Guido Cavalcanti, at a time when the study 
of antiquity and the tragic struggles of his native land awoke in 
him an epic genius. The Divine Comedy is not inspired by 
political hatred only, not by the mystical passion felt for Beatrice 
and for the beauties of theology alone ; but Virgil is also one of 
the principal personages in it, and significantly it is in trying to 
imitate him that the author of the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the 
Paradiso has given to his poem its masterly form. Dante con- 
centrated in himself the whole spirit of the Middle Ages, its po- 
litical dreams and its religious beliefs. At the same time he opened 
up new horizons to the Italian genius, and assured to the Tuscan 
dialect, which was natural to him, the primacy over all others as 
the future literary language of Italy. 

Dante's influence upon his time w^as, nevertheless, not exclu- 
sively due to his masterpiece. His treatise upon the Italian lan- 
guage {De vulgari eloquio), his secondary works {La Vita Nuova, 
and the Canzoniere, or minor poems), his philosophical meditation 
(// Convito, the Banquet), and his treatise upon Ghibelline politics 
{De Monarchia), show the activity of his mind, the extent of his 
knowledge, and the perfection to which the Italian language had 
already attained at a time when the other idioms of Europe were 
but slowly and painfully taking form. 



282 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

3. Petrarch (1304-1374).— Petrarch was even more than 
Dante a man of letters, and his influence made itself felt over all 
western Europe. He lived alternately at the court of the popes 
at Avignon and in the poetical retreat which he had made for 
himself, not far away, near the fountain of Vaucluse. In politics 
he played an important rôle, not in Tuscany, his native land, alone, 
but in Rome, where he was a serious supporter of Rienzi's re- 
forms. Later, the Holy See profited by his eloquence and his 
universal reputation for scholarship when it intrusted to him certain 
delicate negotiations in France, in Germany, at Naples, and at 
Venice. 

The true glory of Petrarch is twofold: first, by his passion for 
classical antiquity, he was the real creator of humanism, and 
secondly, he made the Italian language flexible and perfect by his 
lyrical poetry in the vulgar tongue. 

*' The essence of humanism consists in a new and vital percep- 
tion of the dignity of man as a rational being apart from theolog- 
ical determinations, and in the further perception that classic litera- 
ture alone displayed human nature in the plenitude of intellectual 
and moral freedom" (Symonds). It was his longing and the 
efforts which Petrarch made to attain to this ideal that made him 
*' the father of humanism," while the importance of his task is 
increased by the consideration that it had to be done when he 
did it, or it might not have been accomplished for a long time 
afterwards, if at all. " We are therefore justified in hailing 
Petrarch as the Columbus of a new spiritual hemisphere, the dis- 
coverer of modern culture. . . . But for his intervention in the 
XIV century, it is possible that the Revival of Learning and all 
that it implies might have been delayed until too late. Petrarch 
died in 1374. The Greek Empire was destroj^ed in 1453. Be- 
tween those dates Italy recovered Greek classics; but whether the 
Italians would have undertaken this labor if no Petrarch had 
preached the attractiveness of liberal studies, or if no school of 
disciples had been formed by him in Florence remains more than 
doubtful." This possibly claims too much for Petrarch, who had 
been preceded, besides, by many lovers of the Latin classics, but it 
is safe to say that no one before him had the same longing and 
passion for antiquity. 

He himself knew little Greek. In spite of this fact, it is 



THE FIRST ITALIAN HISTORIAN 283 

perhaps the greatest tribute to the grasp of his mind that he foresaw 
that the future of scholarship and of science depended upon the 
intensive study of Greek literature. ^' The study of Greek im- 
plied the birth of criticism, comparison, and research. Systems 
based upon ignorance and superstition were destined to give way 
before it. The study of Greek opened philosophical horizons far 
beyond the dream world of the churchmen and the monks; it 
stimulated the germs of science, suggested new astronomical hy- 
potheses, and indirectly led to the discovery of America. The 
study of Greek revived the sense of the beautiful in art and in 
literature. It subjected the creeds of Christianity, the language of 
the gospels, the doctrine of Saint Paul to analysis, and commenced 
a new era of biblical inquiry." 

Petrarch, from his retreat at Arqua, near Padua, where he died, 
contributed to the knowledge of masterpieces which were thought 
to be entirely lost: Ouintilian, some of the speeches of Cicero, and 
especially Sophocles, a revelation, the more valuable inasmuch as 
Greek literature had been otherwise as unknown as Latin 
literature. 

The verses which he composed to Laura de Nova, the noble 
Provençal lady to whom he had vowed an ideal love, for a long 
time remained the model of amorous poetry, and he gave to the 
sonnet a perfection which has never been surpassed, while his 
Latin poem upon the Punic Wars, Africa, which secured him a 
triumph at the Capitol, led in Italy to the formation of a 
school of Virgilian poets, who directed their attention upon 
antiquity. 

4. Boccaccio (1313-1375). — Boccaccio was the friend of 
Petrarch and the commentator upon Dante. He had rather more 
influence upon the intellectual movement of his time by his philo- 
logical works upon the Latin language and upon Homer than by 
the tales of his Decameron, although this masterpiece of Italian 
prose has cast into the shade the innumerable Italian raconteurs, 
who preceded and followed him. 

5. The First Italian Historian. — The works of Dante, 
Petrarch, and Boccaccio were by no means isolated in their time. 
The Italian universities of Bologna and Paduahad long been famous, 
and the university of Bologna under Irnerius in the XII century 
had kept alive the recollection and tradition of Roman law, while in 



284 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

Accursius in the XIII century, and in Bartolus in the XIV century, 
it boasted of professors of law whose reputation and influence were 
European. The great Papal Jubilee took place at Rome in the 
year 1300, when Boniface sat upon the pontifical throne in the 
midst of an enthusiastic throng. This spectacle inspired a Floren- 
tine, named Giovanni Villani, with the idea of composing a 
chronicle, the Istoria Florentine. In this account the naivete of 
the Middle Ages is united with a feeling for literature in which the 
influence of antiquity becomes plainly evident. Until the close of 
this period, indeed, Italy did not cease to produce historians in the 
vernacular tongue, among whom the Florentines, throughout, held 
the first place. 

6. Humanism in the XV Century. — Before the taking of 
Constantinople, humanism, or the study of antiquity, was already 
held in high esteem in Italy. During the second half of the XIV 
century, under the influence of the Byzantine, Emanuel Chryso- 
loras, who gave public lectures upon Greek literature at Turin, 
Florence, Milan, Pavia, and at Rome, Italy began to be influ- 
enced by a love for Greek literature. The most illustrious of 
his pupils was Guarino, w^ho published the poems of Catullus, 
translated Plutarch, Strabo, and some of the Dialogues of Plato. 
The ideas of Plato at once became very popular, and his philosophy, 
as opposed to that of Aristotle, was the chief subject of discussion 
among scholars during the XV century, especially after Cosimo 
de' Medici had founded the Platonic Academy at Florence. Noth- 
ing is more striking than this turn of mind of the humanists of 
the XV century, who, in their admiration for antiquity, joined 
a daring and witty libertinism, when they wrote in Italian, to a 
religious gravity. Thus, Poggio, who was present at the Council of 
Constance, and was one of the few persons who dared to condemn 
the death of John Hus, is at the same time the author of a dis- 
creditable collection of indecent stories called the Facetiae, and 
the most serious editor of Vitruvius, Lactantius, and Cicero, the 
historian of Florence, an austere moralist, and the champion of 
Plato. The Platonists, under the protection of the popes them- 
selves, Eugenius IV, Nicholas V, Sixtus IV, and of Lorenzo de' 
Medici, hesitated between an out and out paganism and a religious 
reformation, the elements of which they believed were to be found 
in the moral teachings of Plato. Pomponio Leto, the protege of 



GIOTTO 285 

Sixtus IV, disregarded everj'thing which did not pertain to an- 
tiquit}^, and appears to have been desirous of substituting the sac- 
rifice of animals for the Mass. Marsilio Ficino devoted his entire 
life to a commentary upon Plato, and Pico della Mirandola, a 
philosopher whom Savonarola himself received upon a footing of 
friendship, united with his devotion to the Virgin and his clear and 
simple faith an almost religious belief in the Christian virtues of 
Platonism. 

7. The Primitives. — This mixture of a love for antiquity with 
a naïve and exalted Christianity manifests itself in the primitive 
Italian artists. The cold symmetrical paintings of the Byzantine 
School, in spite of their decorative value, could not satisfy the 
imagination of a people stirred by the tender and familiar preach- 
ings of the disciples of Saint Francis of Assisi. Painting at first 
felt its way painfully. The old masters of the Sienese School 
mistook ugliness and grimacing attitudes for feeling and expres- 
sion, and the first great Florentine painter, Cimabue (1302), 
whose Madonna at Florence, according to a doubtful legend, 
was carried in triumph through the city, is a long way from the 
masters of the XVI century. His Madonna in the Louvre indi- 
cates his preference for gilded backgrounds, a recollection of 
Byzantium, and for symmetry in his figures. They display, too, 
his ignorance of perspective and relief, but they show at the same 
time his artistic sense and the singular vivacity of his painting in 
distemper. 

8. Giotto (1266-1337).— Had he done nothing more than 
discover Giotto, Cimabue would have merited the distinction of 
having inaugurated the glorious period of the Trecentisti (artists 
of the XIV century, 1300-1400). Giotto di Bondone drew his 
inspiration at the same time from Dante and from Saint Francis. 
In his skilful and naïve compositions in which a very pure religious 
feeling is joined to a satisfactory realism, he sought always to ex- 
press that religious ardor and those feelings of simple piety which 
the preachings of the Minor Friars and the development of the 
worship of the Virgin had spread over Italy. This is the character 
of his frescoes. Their subject in the Church of Assisi and in Santa 
Croce is the life of Saint Francis, in the Arena Chapel at Padua 
it is the life of Christ. Not content with expressing himself in 
painting, this man of genius was also a remarkable architect, the 



286 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

creator of the beautiful Campanile, which rises beside the cathedral 
of Florence. 

9. Fra Angelico (1387-1455). — For a century the influence 
of Giotto reigned supreme over Italian art. Taddeo and Agnolo 
Gaddi, Andrea di Cione, called Orcagna, architect and painter, 
and Spinello Aretino, the painters of the Sienese School to whom 
we owe the beautiful frescoes of the Campo Santo of Pisa, fol- 
lowed Giotto's footsteps, but preserved at the same time each 
his own creative originality. They did not observe or study nature 
closely enough, however, to enable their art to preserve its vigor, 
and it inclined more and more to conventionalism. At the end 
of the XIV century, a vigorous naturalistic reaction, of which 
Gentile da Fabriano is the first representative, broke away from 
symbolism, already become banal in the Gothic School, and sought 
in the glowing and brilliant life of the Italian cities a new source 
of inspiration. The departing spirit of the Middle Ages never- 
theless still found a delicate expression of its freshness and sin- 
cerity in the works of a pious Dominican, beatified by the Church 
and known in the history of art under the name of Fra Giovanni 
da Fiesole, or Fra Angelico. From his Triumph of the Virgin, 
in the Louvre, we may judge what conscience, science, and natural 
feeling for composition and expression was felt by this painter- 
monk, who never painted without first falling on his knees in 
prayer, and who, when he had covered the corridors and the cells 
of the convent of San Marco at Florence with his frescoes, was 
more concerned to please God and the saints than to acquire 
renown among men. 

10. The Realists. — The XV century, the century of the 
Quattrocentisti (1400-1500), is really the great century of the 
Renaissance, if we mean by that word the moment when the 
human mind, through its intense love of life and of nature, and 
through the study of antiquity, broke with the traditions and 
the spirit of the Middle Ages. Unquestionably religious feeling 
still dominated a great many minds, but it no longer controlled 
all other human ideas. A pagan joy in living unfolded in the 
souls of the painters of the XV century, especially when, about 
1450, the new process of Van Eyck of using oil in painting reached 
Italy, and gave to color a power hitherto unknown. The very 
themes drawn from religious history and Bible story, now be- 



SIGNORELLI AND PERUGINO 287 

came the scenes of the actual daily life of the time. Masolino da 
Panicale (1383-1440) and Masaccio (1402-1428) especially were 
the initiators of this realistic art, which retained almost nothing of 
the rigidity of the preceding period. Whereas Benozzo Gozzoli 
(1420- 1 498) still preserved something of the naïveté of his master 
Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, although he had taken orders, pur- 
sued an adventurous and dissolute career, and in his great com- 
positions sought to render the turmoil of a splendid and luxurious 
life. With Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488), and especially 
Ghirlandajo (Domenico di Bigordi, 1449- 1494), Florentine art 
attained its perfection in the XV century. At the same time gold- 
smiths, sculptors, and painters, they were the masters who taught 
Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. The vigorous talent of 
Ghirlandajo is well displayed in his Adoration of the Shepherds at 
Florence, and in the magnificent double portrait of an old man 
and a child in the Louvre. 

IL Botticelli (1447-1515). — Yet there were Florentine and 
Umbrian artists who, while profiting by the progress of technique 
and feeling the attraction of antique beauty, nevertheless pre- 
served the mediaeval taste for symbolism, and sought their in- 
spirations in a sentimental idealism. Thus, Alessandro Filipepi, 
better known under the name of Sandro Botticelli, whose troubled 
soul had yielded to Savonarola's influence, in his Spring and The 
Birth of Venus bodies forth creations of pagan imagination which 
are penetrated with the feeling of Christian chastity, and the grace 
of his languid Madonnas, as well as of his virginal nymphs, is due 
to a singular mixture of naïveté and candid mannerism. 

12. Signorelli (1441-1523) and Perugino (1446-1524).— 
To the south of Tuscany, and in Umbria, there was formed a 
school of painting, called the Umbrian School, which exercised a 
decisive influence upon the painting of the XV century. Pietro 
della Francesca lived at Perugia, at Arezzo, and at Urbino, and 
painted in those cities frescoes and pictures which possess a scien- 
tific definiteness of design and display a remarkable freedom and 
freshness of color. He was the master of Luca Signorelli, whose 
frescoes in the church of Orvieto have an extraordinary vigor of 
design and expression, and who, by reason of his knowledge of 
the science of anatomy and his daring application of that knowl- 
edge in the presentation of nude figures, is both the examplar and 



288 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

precursor of Michael Angelo. There lived at the same time, 
Pietro Vanucci, called Perugino, because he spent a great part of 
his time at Perugia. At Florence, at Perugia, and at Rome, where 
he enjoyed the favor of Pope Sixtus IV, this painter executed 
works which are exquisite in the purity of their design and the 
sweetness of their expression, but which are unfortunately char- 
acterized by a decided monotony of inspiration and a barrenness 
of invention. This limitation will not surprise us, however, when 
we learn that this painter of holiness was personally brutal, 
avaricious, and irreligious. But his impeccable style made him a 
model for the fertile and ingenious Bernardino di Betti Biagio, 
called Pinturicchio, and imposed itself upon his pupil, Raphael, 
to such a degree that his early pictures can, with difficulty, be 
distinguished from those of Perugino. 

13. The First Venetians. — The Florentines, whether realists 
or idealists, were always painters of the soul. There is always 
an intellectual and moral element in their works, and they have 
been essentially rather designers than colorists. In the north, 
on the contrary, in the Venetian states, where everything breathed 
the intoxication of luxury, power, and voluptuousness, painting 
took on an essentially decorative character, and the Venetians be- 
came incomparable colorists. The Sicilian, Antonello da Messina, 
taught them the process of painting with oil, which he had learned 
from the Flemish; and the Florentines, Donatello, Paolo Uccello, 
and Filippo Lippi, lived at Padua, where they set forth the 
science of design. Likewise Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) in 
his various works, where the vigor of his design was pushed to 
harshness and expression to the point of ugliness, showed himself 
to be a powerful realist and the passionate admirer of antiquity. 
This quality is best displayed in his great work, the Triumph of 
Julius Caesar, at Hampton Court, where the minute learning 
accumulated in the XV century upon the subject of Roman 
military life has found noble illustration; while in the Louvre, 
his Parnassus, his picture of Virtue Expelling the Vices, and his 
Golgotha, show us diverse aspects of the man of genius and of the 
artist, to whose technical execution his knowledge of the science 
of form and perspective gave a somewhat required and rigid aspect. 
Venice, which received its lessons in art from Padua, and from 
the half-Germanic Verona, shaped and assimilated all these in- 



SCULPTURE, ARCHITECTURE, ENGRAVING 289 

fluences in its warm and sumptuous imagination. The brothers- 
in-law of Mantegna, Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, especially the 
second, and Vittore Carpaccio, by their portraits, their altar pic- 
tures, and their magnificent representations of Venetian life, fore- 
told the decorative splendors of Veronese, Titian, and Tintoretto. 

14. Sculpture, Architecture, and Engraving in the XV 
Century. — While painting with Cimabue was still bound to the 
Byzantine traditions, sculpture was already emancipated, thanks 
to the study of the works of antiquity, and to a direct observation 
of nature. Niccolo Pisano, about 1205, drew his inspiration from 
the sculpture upon an antique Roman sarcophagus for his bas- 
reliefs in the Baptisteries of Pisa and Siena. A century later, the 
bronze gates of the Baptistery of Florence, executed by Ghiberti, 
display a sculpture as far advanced as painting was a hundred years 
later under Raphael. Donatello, more of a realist than Ghiberti, in 
his statues of Saint John the Baptist, and Saint George in Flor- 
ence, in his Prophets, and in his equestrian statue of Gattemalata 
at Padua, pushed to its extreme limits the power of expression in 
sculpture. Luca della Robbia, the chief of that artistic family 
which excelled in bas-reliefs in glazed blue and white terra-cotta, 
understood the art of giving to his Madonnas an exquisite grace 
and tenderness that rivaled even Donatello in this realm of art. 

Dating from the end of the XIII century, with Arnolfo del 
Cambio, who began the Palazzo della Signoria and the cathe- 
dral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, architecture combined 
with the rude gravity of the Middle Ages a grace of line and a 
brilliancy of many-colored marbles. In the first half of the XV 
century, Brunelleschi, who gave to Santa Maria del Fiore its 
octagonal cupola, and constructed the Pitti Palace, displayed a 
feeling for proportion and a majesty in the use of architectural 
members which recalls antique architecture. At Venice, the 
Ducal Palace of the XV century, in which the Gothic finds itself 
joined to Oriental fantasy, is a creation possessing an originality 
and a unique charm, while the church of San Marco combines the 
influences of the Orient with the Byzantine style. The art of 
engraving was naturally associated with that of sculpture. A 
great number of artists, like Verrocchio and Pollajuolo, are at the 
same time painters, sculptors, and engravers. Medals, and medal- 
lions of bronze in the XV century are often masterpieces in which 



290 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

there displays itself the talent for portraiture and the fertility of 
imagination of the men of the Renaissance. 

15. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527).— Italian literature 
did not pursue a development nearly so regular as that of the 
plastic arts. After the brilliancy of the great works of Dante, 
Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Villani, the vernacular Italian was de- 
spised by men of letters; and if several chroniclers like Dino 
Compagni made use of it, the humanists and the philosophers 
disdained the employment of any other language than Latin. For 
this reason the literature of Italy, during the great part of the 
XV century, is a neo-Latin literature. Nevertheless, while the 
Italian sermons of Savonarola were stirring the souls of his fellow 
Italians, history and poetry in the vulgar tongue were on the 
point of giving birth to new masterpieces. Niccolo Machiavelli 
was a patriotic and republican Florentine. He served his native 
state as an ambassador, and as a secretary of the Republic, strug- 
gled against the tyranny of the Medici who exiled him, and 
dreamed of an Italy freed from the yoke of the stranger and under 
a strong government of its own. For the inaction to which the 
re-establishment of the Medici had reduced him he consoled himelf 
by writing his History of Florence, his Commentaries upon the 
Decades of Titus Livius, and the book of The Prince, in which he 
sought, now in the politics of Rome, now in the lessons of con- 
temporary history, the principles upon which the power of the 
state rested. His great work has been accused of indorsing im- 
morality, and the name machiavellism has been given to a policy 
of cruelty and deception because he proposed as an example of the 
Prince, Caesar Borgia, who for an instant had succeeded in 
creating a powerful state in the center of Italy. But Machiavelli, 
like all the great men of his time, was a realist who set forth in 
words, with the precision of a lapidary, the results of his experi- 
ence, and judged men, as all the Italians of the Renaissance did, 
according to their degree of virtu, that is to say, force of character 
and intellect. 

16. Italian Prose of the XVI Century. — Machiavelli is not 
isolated in his centurj^ Guicciardini, like him a Florentine, was 
the author of a History of Italy from 1495 to 1532 and of nu- 
merous political discourses and writings. He had neither the 
originality nor the grand style of Machiavelli, but he holds an 



ITALIAN POETS 291 

honorable place after him. In Venice, at the end of the century, 
Paul Paruta made himself the critic of Machiavelli, becoming, at 
the same time, the historian of his own city. It was at Venice, 
too, that Paul Sarpi wrote a History of the Council of Trente 
in which he ventured to contest the validity of its deliberations. 
Italian prose exercised its influence upon Europe also through 
its story-tellers, such as Straparola and Machiavelli himself, author 
of Belphcgor. Pietro Aretino, through his letters, his pamphlets, 
and his tales under the form of dialogue, was a sort of journalist, 
bold, humorous, brilliant, spirited, venal, and courtly, compelling 
artists and princes alike to tremble, and striking off with a single 
biting sweep of his pen the morals of his contemporaries. Bal- 
dassare Castiglione displays himself as quite as fine a psychologist 
and a moralist, and a great deal more refined, in his little work 
entitled The Courtier. In it he draws an ideal portrait of a 
man of the world, and it had a European success. 

17. Italian Comedy. — The Italian theater owes its develop- 
ment to its imitation of antiquity, and Italy was the first to create 
tragedies and comedies, fashioned after the classical models. Leo 
X had Trissino's Sophonisba played before his court. Iphigenia 
in Tauris, Orestes, and Antigone were likewise favorite subjects 
for the imitators of Trissino. Italian comedy, also in imitation of 
Plautus and Terence, brought forth a great many works which 
had considerable originality, but which were very licentious. Such 
Were the Calandria of Cardinal Bithinia, the Mandragora of 
Machiavelli, and the comedies of Ariosto. It is in Italy, too, that 
music was associated for the first time with dramatic poetry, and 
the opera takes its birth there in the second half of the XVI 
century. 

18. Italian Poets of the XV and XVI Centuries.— Italian 
poetry of the Renaissance has been very much admired without 
its ever having attained, nevertheless, to the importance of the 
prose of Machiavelli. It no longer has for its inspiration the 
sublime faith of Dante and the passionate idealism of Petrarch. 
It is a poetry in which there is felt the frivolity and skepticism 
of the princely courts for which it was written. Facile, adroit, and 
gallant, it is often at the same time pedantic and affected. 
Boiardo's Orlando ïnnamorato, in seventy-nine cantos, is a curious 
and incoherent mixture of the epic poetry of the Middle Ages 



292 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

with suggestions of Homer; Luigi Pulci, whose brothers imitated 
the pastoral and mythological poetry of the ancients, created in 
his Morgant the Great, hero-comic poetry and half-serious parody. 
He made sport of the epic traditions of the Middle Ages by imi- 
tating them. 

19. Ariosto (1474-1533). — Between the chivalresque genre of 
Boiardo, and the hero-comic genre of Pulci, Ludovico Ariosto 
created romantic epic poetry in his Orlando Furioso. An unex- 
pected variety of tone and invention, and inexhaustible verve, a 
marvelous gift of narration and of description, and finally a subtle 
irony, combined in an indefinable manner with the old recitals of 
the Carolingian cycle, has made of the Orlando Furioso a poem 
delightful in its essential originality. Pulci made sport of his 
heroes. Ariosto loved his and was enchanted with them without 
believing in them. 

20. Tasso (1544-1595). — Torquato Tasso, who lived at a 
time when, as a consequence of the Council of Trent, Italy had 
taken on a certain moral gravity, wrote an epic poem, Jerusalem 
Delivered, in which enthusiasm is united with the most lofty ro- 
mantic sentiments and with a more sincere passion than that of 
Ariosto. This poem, which appeared in 1560, and which had six 
editions in a single year, was saluted in Italy and by the whole 
of Europe as a masterpiece without rival. It deserves to live on 
account of the beauty of its style, which rendered it popular 
even among the peasants of Italy, but today we find only cold- 
ness and convention in the marvelous Christian and his chivalric 
passions. It is all too obvious that Tasso lived at the court of 
Italian princes, particularly that of the Estes of Ferrara, and his 
Jerusalem Delivered seems to us today a poem of the court and the 
academy. His seven years' madness, an exaggerated expression of 
his poetical and religious scruples, nevertheless, proves to us how 
serious and profound was his soul. He died in Rome in 1595, at 
the moment when Pope Clement VIII was upon the point of 
having him crowned upon the Capitol. 

21. Minor Poets. — By the side of these great works, we 
scarcely find in Italian poetry of the XVI century anything that 
is much more than affectation and pretense. Already Lorenzo de' 
Medici and Politian, in the Octaves and the Sonnets, were giving 
evidence of more sincerity. The pastorals of Guarini, and the 



LEONARDO DA VINCI 293 

Arcadia of Sannazaro were becoming insipid, while the parodies 
of Tassoni (the Stolen Pail) and of Berni today have little flavor. 
It is almost nowhere, excepting in the sonnets of Michael Angelo, 
that there are to be discovered profound poetical sentiments ex- 
pressed with an incontestable grandeur; but Michael Angelo did 
not create a school. 

22. The Lombard School. — The brilliant and sensual life 
of Italy of the XVI century did more for the inspiration of the 
artists than for the poets. The marvelous development of the 
plastic arts of the XIV and XV centuries, produced in the XVI 
century works whose power and perfection have entitled that 
period, known, without sufficient justification, under the name of 
the Century of Leo X, to be considered as the most remarkable 
which the whole history of art can furnish. 

23. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). — Florence is always 
first, and Leonardo da Vinci was, at the end of the XV and 
the beginning of the XVI century, the most universal of the 
creative artists of Plorence. Painter, sculptor, engraver, architect, 
engineer, and mathematician, he lived at one time with Caesar 
Borgia, at another with Ludovico Sforza. His works in sculpture 
have not come down to us, and his pictures are rare. His great 
fresco of the Last Supper, in the convent of Notre-Dame della 
Grazia in Milan, still recalls to us, however, mutilated and 
marred as it is, the creative power of Leonardo, and the mastery 
of his execution. The Louvre possesses several of his most beauti- 
ful works, especially the Virgin Among the Rocks. The Louvre 
also possesses Leonardo's masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, whose in- 
definable expression of enigmatical grace and irony, continues to 
preserve its seductive charm in spite of the injury inflicted upon 
it by time. The drawings of Leonardo reveal to us, in his case, 
a science, a certainty of execution, a feeling for beauty, and 
a gift for rendering the most fleeting expressions upon the 
human countenance. This is a power which gives him a place 
quite apart and beyond any other artist of his time. He was, 
above all, a man of genius, the most complete tj^pe which the 
Renaissance has to offer. He knows all that may be known in 
his time; he thinks more of knowing than of producing; he is an 
investigator and a dilettante; and he writes volumes upon art and 
science. When he produces a work of art, whether it is a statue, 



294 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

a picture, a canal, or a mathematical theory, he believes that his 
work should be original and perfect, and he still remains su- 
perior to the work which he has created. Summoned to France 
by Francis I, Leonardo died there in 15 19. He had the greatest 
number of followers in Lombardy, at Milan. One of them, Ber- 
nardino Luini, has preserved in his virgins, and in the half-smile of 
his women, something of the subtle grace of Leonardo. 

24. Fra Bartolommeo (1475-1517) and Andrea del Sarto 
(1487-1531). — Florence could console herself a little for the ab- 
sence of Leonardo da Vinci, in the works of Fra Bartolommeo, 
called Baccio della Porta, or II Frate, and of Andrea Vannucci, bet- 
ter known under the name of Andrea del Sarto. The first was a 
Dominican who was profoundly impressed by the austere teaching 
of Savonarola. He was also the admirer of Leonardo and the 
friend of Raphael, whom he inspired, and he placed at the service of 
his religious feelings a profound science and a wonderfully soft 
brush. Andrea del Sarto was a painter of great facility and a 
prodigious and even excessive fertility of invention, whose works, 
in their wonderful harmony of color in gray and silver, have more 
grace than force. Having come to France in 15 18, he left the king 
his Charity and two Holy Families, which are still to be admired 
in the Louvre. 

25. Michael Angelo (1474-1563).— Michael Angelo Buona- 
rotti was also a Florentine, but his personality is so overpowering 
that it is not possible to assign him to any school. By the execu- 
tion of his work, as well as by the profundity of his thought, he 
remains quite apart from his master, Ghirlandajo, and his pupils, 
Vasari and Daniel of Volterra. Born of a noble family of Arezzo, 
he won by his bas-relief, the Combat of the Centaurs, the protec- 
tion of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Tormented by the desire for 
artistic and moral perfection, he journeyed to the north of Italy, 
studied Dante with absorption, and made deep investigations into 
the science of anatomy. At the same time he was one of the most 
constant admirers of Savonarola, and when he arrived at Rome for 
the first time, his rigid and upright character was cruelly shocked 
by the corruption and decadence of Italy. In the midst of general 
depravity, he was always ready to protest. For this reason, the 
austerity, the sadness, and the grandeur of his conceptions are con- 
tinuously sustained. 



MICHAEL ANGELO AT FLORENCE 295 

26. Michael Angelo and Julius II. — As a sculptor, he 
sought, in general, majestic or terrible themes; as a painter, he 
disdained easel pictures, and confined himself to mural painting 
for his greatest compositions. When at work he was accustomed 
to shut himself up for months at a time in order to live with his 
task, permitting no one, not even the pope, to penetrate the secret 
of his toil. The Pietà, a marble group, in which the Virgin holds 
the dead Christ upon her knees (St. Peter's, 1501), and the David 
in marble, at the Academiy of the Belle Arti in Florence, in which 
the pliancy and the vigor of adolescence are admirably expressed, 
assured the renown of Michael Angelo. 

Pope Julius II, " the terrible pontifï," had just called him to 
Rome. Like Michael Angelo he was passionately devoted to 
Italy. He was also profoundly sensitive to the arts, and intrusted 
to Michael Angelo the task of preparing his tomb in the Church 
of Saint Peter in Vinculis. After him, Leo X, Clement VII, 
Paul III, Julius III, Paul IV, and Pius V, all did themselves the 
honor of setting to work this great man who always maintained 
a haughty reserve even toward his protectors. For Julius II he 
conceived the plan of a majestic monument, whose different stages 
should be supported by allegorical figures, and at the summit was 
to be raised the statue of the pope ; but his labor was interrupted 
by a quarrel with the pope. By 15 13, at the time of the death 
of Julius II, he had only completed the statue of Victory (Flor- 
ence) ; the two Slaves (Louvre), whose troubled expression cor- 
responds so well with the despondent temperament of the artist; 
and the colossal Moses, which, today, alone decorates the tomb of 
Julius II in the church of Saint Peter in Vinculis. This colossus^ 
with its powerful head, its symbolical horns, and its majestic atti- 
tude, is one of the most imposing works which sculpture has ever 
produced. 

27. Michael Angelo at Florence. — In 1508, the pope in- 
trusted to Michael Angelo the task of adorning the Sistine Chapel 
in the Vatican. Upon the ceiling and the pendents of this Chapel, 
in the glow of his enthusiasm, Michael Angelo painted that mag- 
nificent succession of sibyls and prophets, which has been called 
his Bible. Several years after this Leo X, the son of Lorenzo the 
Magnificent, sent him to Florence to adorn the Chapel of 
the Medici in the Church of San Lorenzo, and to raise there the 



296 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

tombs of Julian de' Medici, the Duke of Nemours, and of Lorenzo 
(II) de' Medici, the Duke of Urbino. It was a singular apotheosis. 
Lorenzo had nothing of his grandfather, Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
in him, and had died in 15 19, hated for his cruelty. It is not 
surprising therefore that in 1521, upon the death of the pope, 
the work of Michael Angelo was not yet begun. Under the reign 
of Adrian VI, the strict preceptor of Charles V, who was so 
little favorable to art, the great sculptor could still ignore the 
command which had been laid upon him; but upon the accession 
of Giulio de' Medici, cousin of Leo X, as Pope Clement VII, it 
seemed now, as if he might be compelled to execute it. Oppor- 
tunely enough, just at this time, profiting by the horrar which was 
inspired by the brigandages of Giovanni de' Medici, " the Great 
Devil," Florence drove the family, as a whole, out of the city, 
and resumed her independence (1527). But that independence 
did not last long. In 1529, Clement VII, who, till then, had 
been at war with Charles V, was reconciled with him, and the 
imperial troops laid siege to Florence. Michael Angelo, made 
general engineer of the fortifications, took an energetic part in the 
defense of his native city, which lasted for eleven months, but 
failed in the end. In 1532, Clement VII had given to Alexander 
de' Medici, the son of Lorenzo II the title of Duke of Florence. 
That monster was assassinated in 1537 by his cousin, Lorenzino, 
but was replaced by the son of the Great Devil, Cosimo II ( 1537), 
who showed himself equally cruel. 

28. II Penseroso. Night. — This humiliation of his native 
land added to the spirit of bitterness, which for a long time had 
taken possession of Michael Angelo, but in order to avoid the 
vengeance of Clement VII, he had to undertake the tombs which 
had been intrusted to him so long before. On the sarcophagus of 
Lorenzo, beneath the statue, named // Penseroso because of its 
attitude of profound meditation, he placed two allegorical figures 
Dawn and Twilight. The statue of Julian is accompanied by 
two other figures, Day and Night. In this group the despondent 
attitude in sleep of the female figure representing Night was, for 
his contemporaries, an allusion to the debasement of Florence and 
of Italy. 

29. The Last Judgment. — From this time forward, Michael 
Angelo passed sadly the last thirty-four years of his long life suffer- 



RAPHAEL AT ROME 297 

ing in the decadence of his native land. In that spirit when 
Paul III intrusted him with the painting of the wall at the 
end of the Sistine Chapel, he chose for his subject the Last Judg- 
ment. This extraordinary work was finished between 1535 and 
1 54 1. In it an excessive inclination to paint beautiful and power- 
ful naked figures somewhat destroys the religious character of the 
work in which Christ appears as an angry avenger, rather than as a 
compassionate Savior. Somewhat later, in 1547, Michael Angelo 
became the architect of the Vatican, and was intrusted with the 
task of raising the dome of Saint Peter's. A final grief fell upon 
him in his extreme old age, in the death of Vittoria Colonna, a 
woman of superior character, who had inspired in him an enthusi- 
astic friendship. Blind, bowed down by age and disappointment, 
Michael Angelo hardly survived her (1563), and the great art of 
the XVI century ceased with his death. 

30. Raphael (1483-1520).— Michael Angelo lived almost a 
half century longer than Raphael, who was nine years younger 
than he. Raphael Santi was born at Urbino, March 28th, 1483. 
His father, Giovanni Santi, was a painter endowed with a fair 
amount of talent, but the real master of Raphael was Perugino. 
He yielded at first so strongly to the influence of Perugino that, as 
has already been said, the early works of Raphael can with diffi- 
culty be distinguished from those of Perugino, as, for example, 
the Marriage of the Virgin at Milan. From 1504 to 1508, he 
lived in Florence and in Tuscany, and studied the great frescoes of 
Masaccio, in which a fidelity to nature is so happily combined with 
grace of expression. The advice of Era Bartolommeo drove him to 
seek an ideal of beauty more individual than that of Perugino, but 
the pictures of this second period, la Belle Jardinière, the Madonna 
with the Goldfinch, the Madonna of the Grand Duke, the 
Saint George, and the Saint Michael, continue to show the influ- 
ence of the school and display a degree of imitation in spite of the 
perfection of their composition and the charm of features and 
postures. 

31. Raphael at Rome. — In 1508, however, when his kinsman, 
the architect Bramante, had secured for him a summons to the 
court of Julius II, Raphael in his third manner gave adequate 
expression to the force of his genius. In the originality and 
nobility of his compositions, he may, perhaps, be placed side by side 



298 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

with Michael Angelo, and if he fails in the power of a Leonardo, 
he has a conception of beauty and of grace, which created some- 
thing quite new and unique in his Raphaelesque types which are 
so delicate and so pure. 

From 1508 to 15 13, he was at work upon the frescoes of the 
four rooms {stanze) of the Vatican. The versatility of his genius 
here seemed capable of handling all subjects: Religion: in the 
Dispute of the Sacrament^ Heltodorus Driven from the Temple, 
and the Miracle of Bolsena. Antiquity: in the School of Athens 
and the Parnassus. Great Historical Scenes: in the Coronation 
of Charlemagne, Attila, and Leo I, and the Victory of Constantine 
at the Milvian Bridge. Unfortunately the importance of the 
commissions, by crowding Raphael to a feverish activity, which in 
reality shortened his life, did not permit him always to execute 
even his cartoons. Having become, almost at once, one of the 
great personages of Rome, and having been loaded with honors and 
dignity, while yet a young man, he appeared always surrounded 
by a crowd of students, whose devotion to him was a veritable 
idolatry. He committed to Giovanni da Udine the task of executing 
the accessories of ornamentation, musical instruments, flowers and 
framing, details which he called " the grotesques," just as he com- 
mitted to " Fattore " the task of regulating his household and his 
affairs, but these helpers, even Giulio Romano himself, in spite 
of his great talent, too often marred the compositions of the 
master. 

32. The Masterpieces of Raphael. — Fortunately, the greater 
part of his easel pictures are entirely from his own hand, and if 
their color often allows something to be desired, it is perhaps 
because its luster has been so altered by time. Nevertheless, the 
Virgin of the Donation in the Vatican; the Saint John, the Vision 
of Ezekiel, the Madonna of the Chair in Florence ; and the Sistine 
Madonna in Dresden, in which the Virgin and Child have qualities 
so sweet and so human and yet so profoundly divine, are all master- 
pieces. It is at this epoch also that Raphael revealed himself as 
a painter of portraits, when he painted the so-called Donna Velata 
now in the Pitti Palace in Florence, the terrible Portrait of Julius 
II in Florence, the striking portraits of Leo X and the Two Car- 
dinals, and the energetic type of the humanist, Baldassare Casti- 
glione, in the Louvre. 



CORREGGIO 299 

33. Leo X and Raphael. — By 15 13, '' the divine young man " 
had become the favorite artist of Leo X. Giovanni de' Medici was 
pope from 15 13 to 1521, under the name of Leo X. He was the 
son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, a Cardinal at thirty, and, while 
he was free from the scandalous faults of Alexander VI and from 
the violence of Julius II, he, nevertheless, above all things, loved 
Rome, its fêtes, its luxury, and its art. For him Raphael became 
an architect and constructed in the Vatican the portico of Saint 
Damasus, whose vaults he adorned with frescoes, drawn after 
his cartoons by his pupils. This is Raphael's Bible as the paint- 
ings of the Sistine Chapel form the Bible of Michael Angelo. 
He executed with his own hands only those subjects which had 
already been handled by the great Florentine, whom unreliable 
tradition has made the implacable rival of the master of Urbino: 
God Separating the Light from the Darkness; the Creation of the 
Firmament ; and the Creation of Man and of Woman. It was 
for Leo X, finally, that Raphael designed in flat tints certain 
wonderful cartoons of the History of the Apostles, which were in- 
tended to serve as patterns for tapestry, and which are today in 
the South Kensington Museum at London. 

Raphael's last years (1515-1520) were marked by a marvelous 
period of creation. The Holy Family at Naples, and the Saint 
Cecilia at Bologna, in which our admiration is divided between the 
adorable figure of the Saint and the striking silhouette of Saint 
Paul leaning upon his sword ; and finally, the Holy Family of the 
Louvre, a princely gift made by the great painter to Francis I, who 
had carried on a correspondence with him since 15 16, are all 
admirable works. Raphael was at that time thirty-seven years 
old. More than his pleasures and the fêtes which he so much 
loved, the multiplicity of his labors wore him out. He had just 
finished the grandest of his compositions, the Transfiguration m 
the Vatican, when a fever, brought on by overwork, suddenly 
carried him off in 1520. 

34. Correggio (1494-1534).— Raphael and Michael Angelo 
were appreciated in their own lifetime, but if we would look to 
find a painter afterwards renowned who was unknown among 
the artists of the Italian Renaissance, we must turn to the history 
of Antonio Allegri. To his native town of Correggio he owes 
the surname under which he is known to fame. Did he have 



300 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

masters? It is doubtful. He surely studied Mantegna, and his 
calling brought him before Raphael's Saint Cecilia^ but he was pro- 
foundly original, and his manner remains mysterious. It was he 
who first made light play a preponderant rôle in expression. Dur- 
ing his entire life, he struggled against want, but this circumstance 
did not warp his genius, for his graceful, fresh, and brilliant brush 
could pass from the mythological frescoes such as the famous Sleep 
of Antiope in the Louvre, which the abbess Giovanni di Picenza 
had commanded him to paint at Parma, to the incomparable 
Nativity, radiant with divine light, which has been called the Night 
of Correggio, at Dresden. The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catharine 
was one of the favorite subjects of this painter with his mild and 
feminine soul. There are to be found in his pictures certain great 
qualities of color and of grace, as well as a certain affectation 
which prevents him from being ranked as Raphael's equal. He 
is nevertheless, the great man of the School of Parma, and it is 
with a feeling of disappointment that we learn that he died pre- 
maturely in 1534, "worn out like a beast of burden." 

35. Venice and the Venetians. — Correggio was a remarkable 
colorist, but there were Venetian painters who, carried away by 
the intoxication of light and color, sought in painting the delight 
of the eye chiefly, and too often sacrificed to decorative effects 
sincerity and profundity of expression, and even at times correct- 
ness of drawing. They were great artists, nevertheless, and in- 
comparable virtuosos, but they produced too much, and with 
too great rapidity. Michael Angelo once said caustically, '' It 
is a great pity that Venice has no knowledge of composition." Al- 
though Venice suffered by the discovery of America, she was still 
strong enough to struggle against the Turks and to maintain her 
empire on the mainland. Her diplomacy was felt in every court 
of Europe, and the Venetian nobility displayed the greatest luxury 
in their clothing and in their manner of life. The architect 
Palladio and the sculptor Sansovino had made it a city filled 
with palaces and with statues of marble. To the Doge's palace 
and to the basilica of Saint Mark, those marvelous buildings at 
the same time Byzantine, Oriental, and Gothic, were added the 
majestic lines and noble sculpture which made of the Piazza and 
of the Piazzetta of Venice a magnificent festival hall, surrounded 
by incomparable monuments, and having for a dome a sky of 



TITIAN 301 

supernatural transparency. The life of free and opulent Venice 
was thus a continuous pageant for which the artists were con- 
stantl)^ providing the most sumptuous decorations. 

36. Titian (1476-1576). — The most illustrious of these artists, 
by his long career, as well as by the number and the value of 
his works, was Titian (Tiziano Vecelli). He threw about 
his painting an atmosphere of gold, as Veronese spread upon his 
a silver tint, and Tintoretto a violet hue. The history of Titian 
is complete in his pictures, and with the exception of several 
journeys to Florence, to Rome, and to Germany, the favorite 
painter of Charles V and of Philip II passed his life of a 
hundred years in his atelier, in the churches and in the palaces, 
which he filled with his decorative paintings. The joy of painting 
was for him a grand passion. He brought to it even at the age of 
eighty-four all the ardor of youth, as appears in his great 
Apotheosis of the House of Austria, in the Museum of Madrid, 
painted in 1556 with a veritable fury. 

37. The Works of Titian. — Was Titian a religious painter? 
Yes, if the elements of composition, life, brilliancy of color, and 
animation of features are enough to give that attribute to a man 
of genius. Yet in his famous Assumption in Venice, a master- 
piece in many particulars, the chief character is a beautiful and 
touching figure which possesses nothing at all of the divine 
Mother of the Savior of the world. The meek young girl of the 
Presentation of the Virgin in Venice, the Martyrdom of Saint 
Peter in Venice, destroyed at the present time, and of which we 
have only copies, in which the subject almost disappears in the 
wonderful landscape which is intended to surround it, the Christ 
Dragged Away hy His Executioners in Vienna, which moves us 
by its realistic expression of human suffering, seem, none of them, 
to be inspired by an especially profound faith. It is in his ad- 
mirable Entombment, in the Louvre, that Titian has displayed the 
highest religious emotion. 

38. Titian, the Pagan Painter, and the Painter of History. 
— Titian is in reality rather a pagan painter. It was fancifully 
said of him that he painted with powdered flesh. In his Sleeping 
Venus of the Louvre, his Rape of Europa in Boston, his Venus 
with the Little Dog in Florence, his Bacchanale, full of life and 
of abandon, in Florence, the great colorist has placed the most 



302 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

vivid imagination, and the most daring palette at the service of 
his conceptions of mythology. His very taste for brilliant 
decoration and magnificent costumes made of him an historian of 
the XVI century. The Apotheosis of the House of Austria, which 
includes in its groups Charles V, Isabella of Portugal, Philip II, 
and Mary Tudor, and the Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto at 
Madrid, are less prized by us under that title, than are his individ- 
ual portraits: Charles V, whom he has alternately represented in 
the cuirass of a knight-errant, and in the richest court costume 
at Madrid ; Philip II, whose pale and icy features he had so often 
reproduced in Florence, in Naples, and Madrid; Pope Paul III, 
whose calculating malice he has so unmistakably rendered; 
Francis I, in the Louvre alone, whom he painted besides from a 
medal, seems to have been flattered when we compare it with the 
portrait evidently more sincere, attributed to Clouet. Yet in his 
more obscure portraits there displays itself, more unmistakably still, 
the faculty which Titian possesses of giving them life. Such are 
the double portrait of Luigi Cornaro and his son in Florence; the 
Man with the Book, the Buffoon in Madrid, the Laura in the 
Louvre, with her golden hair, and above all, that figure so full of 
energy and intelligence, and in whom the XVI century seems to 
live again, the Man with the Glove, in the Louvre. 

39. Veronese (1528-1588) and Tintoretto (1518-1594).— 
The two most illustrious contemporaries of Titian are Veronese 
and Tintoretto. The painter of Verona (Paolo Cagliari) Paolo 
Veronese was like Titian, the son, nephew, brother, and father of 
artists, and, like him, and even more than he, the official painter 
of the Most Serene Republic. Even more than he also, he has 
sacrificed everything in his works to decorative effect, to his taste 
for beautiful fabrics, brilliant colors, and glowing flesh colors. 
In his Marriage of Cana, in the Louvre, the most celebrated of 
his vast compositions which have been called the " Dinners of 
Veronese," are to be identified Francis I, Charles V, Eleanor of 
Austria, Vittoria Colonna, Solyman, and among the musicians in 
the foreground, figures which also possess color and reality of a 
rare intensity, are Veronese himself, his brother, Titian, and 
Tintoretto. Yet it is perhaps in Venice, upon the walls of the 
Palace of the Doges that the merit of Paolo Veronese shows itself 
best in his striving after decorative effect. Jacopo Robusti ( Tinto- 



ITALIAN SCULPTURE 303 

retto, the dyer), less complete than Titian, less harmonious than 
Veronese, secures his effect by the vigor and definition of his paint- 
ing. His work is chiefly in Venice, in the frescoes of the Ducal 
Palace, and in the paintings of the School of Saint Roch. In the 
scenes of martyrdom his violent genius excels: as, for example, 
the Martyrdom of Saint Agnes, in the church of Santa Maria dell' 
Orto, and the Miracle of Saint Mark, v^hich follows a design of 
great boldness and striking vividness of color, in the Academy at 
Venice. The portraits of Tintoretto have an admirable energy and 
fidelity to life ; and it is from this aspect of his talent that we are 
able best to appreciate him in his Portrait, and in his Man in Black 
in the Louvre. 

40. Other Venetian Artists. — The three great Venetian mas- 
ters are merely the most illustrious in the midst of a considerable 
group of eminent artists. Titian's contemporary, Giorgione, in 
his short life of thirty-three years was considered in the light of a 
rival, almost, of the painter of Cadore. His inspiration is purely 
pagan, but he has displayed in his few works a fidelity and a love 
of perfection which assured to him a reputation equal to that of 
the greatest masters. Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, who ceased 
work when he was placed in charge of the seal of the Pope, in 
spite of his purple tones, passed for a great colorist. Palma, the 
elder, is a remarkable landscape painter, and a depicter of his- 
tory, full of breadth and of force. Finally, for Jacopo de Ponte 
Bassano, so-called from his native land Bassano, the Entry into the 
Ark, the Striking of the Rock, and the Marriage of Cana, three 
pictures in the Louvre, are merely pretexts for rendering with 
fidelity and charm the rustic scenes, animals, and landscapes, from 
the fields of his native land. 

4L Italian Sculpture. — In choosing among the masters of 
Italian painting of the XVI century, it is necessary to set to one 
side certain artists who are interesting rather than great. It 
is the same way in the other arts. Thus, Michael Angelo com- 
pletely overshadows all the other sculptors of his time. But if 
he reproached his jealous and implacable enemy, Baccio Bandi- 
nelli, with having copied the works of antiquity with servility, and 
with mistaking exaggeration for grandeur, this inferior artist has, 
nevertheless, left some very satisfactory pieces of work. His 
Hercules and Cacus, so laughed at by Benvenuto Cellini, who 



304 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

compared the breasts of the god to melons, is not without value; 
his greatest mistake was to have set up a counterpart to Michael 
Angelo's David before the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence. 
Benvenuto Cellini, a braggart adventurer and debauched fighter, 
who lived for some time at Fontainebleau at the court of Francis I, 
has left in his Memoirs most amusing pictures of Italian life of 
the XVI century. Carver, goldsmith, and sculptor, he wandered 
from place to place, carving on his way works of the goldsmith's 
art, upon which he lavished a wealth of elegance and of grace. 
For a time the favorite of Clement VII, but driven from Rome on 
account of his turbulent life and the disorders of his conduct, he 
came to France in 1542, carved for Francis I a celebrated salt- 
cellar, to-day in Vienna, a bas-relief of the Nymph of Fontaine- 
bleau (in the Louvre), and three silver statues which have been 
destroyed. He abruptly left France to finish his adventurous life 
in Florence, where Cosimo II had commissioned him to cast the 
Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa for the Loggia di Lanzi, a 
work characterized by violence of treatment and exaggerated man- 
nerism, but possessing nevertheless a great degree of elegance. 
Another Florentine, his contemporary, Sansovino, filled Venice 
with his colossal statues. Finally, the closing XVI century judged 
that it possessed a great sculptor in an Italianized Frenchman, 
John of Bologna (Boulogne, France). 

42. Italian Architecture. — Along with Sansovino, Raphael, 
and Michael Angelo, the great Italian architects were Bramante, 
Palladio, and Vignola. Bramante of Urbino, had made his début 
at Milan, where he rejected the architectural forms of the Middle 
Ages. His great interest was in adapting to the buildings of his 
own time all that could be assimilated from antiquity. To speak 
properly, the Italian style consists essentially in this. It is a style 
which is distinguished by the use of the loggia, or a gallery opening 
to the exterior by means of a centered arcade, and a beautiful 
and simple arrangement of lines. In 1504, Julius II gave him a 
commission for the porticoes which were to join the Vatican with 
the Villa Belvedere, and he was asked to submit plans for Saint 
Peter's cathedral. Sansovino (Jacopo Tatti), the creator of the 
Zecca, and of the Library of Saint Mark's at Venice, also sought 
grace and nobility. Palladio of Vicenza, who was an archeol- 
ogist and a writer upon the principles of art, completed the Doge's 



ALBERT DURER 305 

palace, and filled Venice and all the great cities in Venetian terri- 
tory with works which were stately and elegant but a trifle cold. 
Giacomo Barozzi, who was called Vignola from the name of his 
native country, was mainly a theorist, and his treatise upon The 
Five Orders has become the law of classical architecture. 

43. Engraving. Marc Antonio (1480-1530). — Architecture 
has had the advantage of being able to withstand the ravages of 
time better than sculpture, and especially painting; it is enough to 
recall the fate of Leonardo de Vinci's Last Supper for the sake of 
illustration. Fortunately for Raphael, at least, an admirable en- 
graver appeared to preserve the masterpieces of his time from 
oblivion. Marc Antonio Raimondi had predecessors in Mantegna, 
and the goldsmith painter of Bologna, Francia, of whom he was 
a pupil. The engravings of Albert Durer furnished him with 
practice in the use of the point, and he penetrated the secrets of 
this art by studying the works of the master of Nuremberg, 
counterfeits of which he did not at first hesitate to circulate. 
Raphael intrusted to him the task of reproducing his works. This 
he did faithfully, although he was incapable of rendering the half- 
tones of light and shadow. After Raphael, he attached himself 
to Giulio Romano, but in spite of the definiteness and the correct- 
ness of his design, Marc Antonio could scarcely pretend to the 
originality and to the force of the German master, whom he 
plundered. 

44. Art in Germany. — At the same time that Italy was ex- 
panding into all the arts, South Germany was also the theater 
of a brilliant artistic Renaissance. German art had developed 
under the influence of the painters of the Low Countries, and the 
schools of painting upon the banks of the Rhine have left us 
works displaying an exquisite feeling of mysticism and beautiful 
color. To their idealist tradition, there is added in the work 
of Wohlgemuth of Nuremberg, and Martin Schoen, or Schon- 
gauer of Colmar, a realistic tendency, which with Wohlgemuth 
approaches the horrible. 

45. Albert Diirer (1471-1528).— Albert Durer, the third of 
eighteen children of a goldsmith of Nuremberg, a pupil of Wohlge- 
muth, journeyed throughout Germany, studying in Italy and in 
the Low Countries. He united the spirit of the Renaissance with 
that of the Middle Ages, and was the favorite artist of the Em- 



3o6 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

peror Maximilian, who, according to his custom, paid him badly. 
As an engraver, a designer, and a painter in water colors, no 
artist has pushed further than Durer the love of nature, the per- 
fection of technique in design, or the power of expression, but as a 
colorist he remained undecided and heavy, and does not seem to 
have had a feeling for beaut)^ He possessed, on the other hand, a 
very lively sense of the picturesque, of the fantastic (the Knight 
and Death), of life (his own portrait, and that of Pirkheimer), 
and of grandeur (the apostles, Peter and Paul). His interior 
scenes, and his engravings upon the Passion, are of delightful 
intimacy or of heart-rending tragedy. He even gave to philosoph- 
ical thoughts a touching plastic form in his Fortune, or in his 
Melancholia. This last is the figure of a woman, who, dejected 
and desolate, contemplates a broken alembic, a cupid with clipped 
wings, and discarded instruments of geometry, while a bat bars 
the rays of the sun with the word melancholia, the image of 
humanity, despairing over its impotence to penetrate the secret 
of the world. It is not surprising to learn that, with his troubled 
soul. Durer was a passionate admirer of Luther. 

46. German Sculpture. — The sculptors of Nuremberg were 
even more strongly influenced by Italian art than the painters 
were. The pathetic and powerful Adam Krafft remains a Gothic 
sculptor, but Peter Vischer, the creator of the Shrine of Saint 
Sebald in Nuremberg, joins to the picturesque sensibility of the old 
master of the Middle Ages, a feeling for elegance and for beauty 
which is quite Italian. 

47. Holbein (1497-1543). — There was at Augsburg a school 
of painting equal to that of Nuremberg. The greatest artist which 
it produced was Hans Holbein, the younger. His first works are 
with diflSculty distinguished from those of his father, Holbein the 
elder, because of their common characteristic of dryness and 
narrowness. He worked, at first, for the master glassmakers of 
the cathedral at Basel, and after a journey to London in 1526, 
he took up his residence there in 1532, and was treated with 
especial favor by Henry VIII. A better colorist than Durer, a 
designer quite as sure, and with a freer touch, he had, to a degree 
which no other artist has perhaps ever attained, the gift of ren- 
dering reality and life without any mannerism. This made of him 
the greatest master of the portrait which the Renaissance pro- 



ART IN THE LOW COUNTRIES 307 

duced. Some of his works, like the portrait of Erasmus, and that 
of the Archbishop Warham in the Louvre, like the picture of his 
wife and his children in the museum at Basel, or the crayon 
Portrait of Maximilian, are works endowed with the gift of eternal 
youth. Painting has never attained to this intensity of life, or to 
this profundity of expression. 

48. Lucas Cranach (1472-1553).— Lucas Miller, called Cra- 
nach the elder, born at Cranach near Bamberg, is far from being 
an artist of the same class as Durer or Holbein. He is especially 
known because of his ardent Lutheranism, and he was made the 
illustrator of some of the scattered leaves which were issued in the 
Protestant propaganda. Besides some vigorous portraits, among 
which are those of Luther, repeated a number of times, he com- 
posed upon his own account certain ironical mythological scenes, 
in which he rails at the Catholic religion; thus, his small Venus 
in the Louvre is wearing a Cardinal's hat. In the case of Lucas 
Cranach, the polemist has done violence to the painter. 

49. Art in the Low Countries. — In the Low Countries the 
Italian influence worked harm to the originality of Flemish art. 
But before classicism penetrated into Flanders, sculpture and 
painting had given birth to masterpieces in the rich Flemish com- 
munes, and in the court of the dukes of Burgundy. Flemish paint- 
ing, which proceeds directly from the arts of the Middle Ages, 
stained-glass, miniatures, wall paintings, and tapestries, and the 
study of nature, gave rise to admirable works which exerted a 
considerable influence in France, in Germany, and even in Italy. 
In the XIV century the miniaturists and painters in distemper 
of the gild of Saint Luke at Antwerp, enjoyed a merited reputa- 
tion, and John of Bruges, one of the favorite artists of Charles V, 
carried this process to France. At the end of the XIV century, 
and even up to the middle of the XV century, the two brothers, 
Hubert and John Van Eyck, who sprang from Eyck on the Maas 
by the sincerity of their design, and the brilliancy of their color, 
were the great masters of the Flemish School. John Van Eyck 
himself was the discoverer of the process of painting in oil. The 
Virgin with Chancellor Rollin of John Van Eyck, in the Louvre, 
enables one to judge how fine was his eye, and what was his mastery 
in execution. The colors of this astonishing work have remained 
unaltered for four hundred years. Roger of the Pasture, known 



3o8 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND IN EUROPE 

under the name of Roger van der Weyden, nearly as good a 
workman as Van Eyck but having a slight awkwardness and 
stiflfness, displays in his religious paintings, in his Descent from the 
Cross, for example, a profound feeling of sorrow. Hans Memling 
is par excellence a religious artist endowed with tender and mystic 
piety. Quentin Matsys already gives intimation of the genre 
painters of the XVII century, while his successors, spoiled by the 
Italian influence, were struck with coldness and mannerism. 
With the Porbus family and Pieter Breughel, the elder, the Flem- 
ish School achieved its original characteristics. It studied nature 
minutely in the portraits produced by these two masters, for 
Breughel painted with a love of familiar subjects, as Matsys had 
done. This was a prelude to the magnificent development of 
Flemish art in the XVII century, which ended in Rubens, Van 
Dyck, Rembrandt, and Teniers. 

50. Decadence in Italy. — Although an artistic exhaustion was 
apparent in Flanders in the XVI century, it did not last. Italy, 
however, after Michael Angelo, Titian, and Tintoretto, under- 
went an irremediable decline. The low character of morality, the 
frivolous life at the princely courts, and the crushing religious 
reaction which followed the Council of Trent, all contributed to 
the complete loss of vitality in art and in letters. But the de- 
cadence in painting and in sculpture was in some ways the result 
of a technical perfection, which ended in some cases in banality, 
as in the Bolognese, Venetian, and Roman painters, or in exag- 
geration and bombast, as with the pupils of Michael Angelo. It 
was, therefore, to the countries of the center and west of Europe, 
France, the Low Countries, and Spain, that the task was intrusted 
of opening up new highways of art, and of exercising by means of 
literature and philosophy, an intellectual hegemony over the 
continent. 



CHAPTER XX 

CHARLES v.— THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION 

IN EUROPE.— THE CATHOLIC COUNTER 

REFORMATION (1519-1563) 

1. Germany at the Death of Maximilian. — While the dis- 
coveries and colonial ventures of the Portuguese and the Spaniards 
brought about an economic revolution in Europe by the diffusion 
of movable wealth, a religious revolution shook the foundations 
of the Old World, created new groupings of states and factions, 
and prevented Germany, which was the chief center of this 
revolution, from attaining to that strong monarchical organization 
which had been already established in France, England, and 
Spain. The princes of the house of Austria, the heirs of the ideas 
of Maximilian, at the moment when they were making a supreme 
effort to establish their hegemony in Germany and in Europe, saw 
themselves checked by the Reformation, which, directed at first 
against the abuses of the Church only, had ended by dividing into 
two hostile factions the whole of European Christendom. Further- 
more, these religious controversies arose in Germany during a 
period of great political agitation and economic unrest. In the 
east, the Sultan Solyman threatened Hungary. In the west, 
the king of France, Francis I, recently conqueror at Marignano, 
openly announced his intention of making a bid for the Empire. 
His elevation to that office would have placed Germany in a 
position of dependence upon France, and this danger was the 
greater, inasmuch as certain of the German electors were dis- 
' posed to vote in favor of Francis, either because of their hatred for 
j the house of Austria, or, as in the case of the elector of Mayence, 

because of their cupidity. 
j 2. The Knights and the Peasants. — To this political agita- 

ition there was added a religious and social dissatisfaction which 
had smoldered since the end of the XIV century and which the 
309 



3IO CHARLES V 

death of John Hus, in 141 5, had been unable to extinguish. Nor 
had the defeat of the Bohemians, in 1437, crushed out either the 
defiance which the spiritual dominion of Rome inspired in Ger- 
many, or the hope of better conditions which the poor had based 
upon a return to the literal directions of the Gospels. Still more 
recently, the works of the Dutch Erasmus, especially the satirical 
Praise of Folly, written in 15 11, were spread everywhere to the 
consternation of the theologians, the monks, and the popes. 

The small nobles and the knights, poor and audacious, but often 
educated, were jealous of the rich and idle abbots; and men like 
Goetz von Berlichingen, Franz von Sickingen, and George 
Frundsberg with all their power urged on a social and religious 
revolution. One of them, Ulrich von Hutten, was the most 
dangerous pamphleteer of his time. For the world of letters, 
he attacked Rome in Latin ; for the tradespeople and the peasants, 
in German songs which instantly became popular, inasmuch as the 
peasants, crushed as they were by ecclesiastical tithes and by feudal 
dues, plainly wanted nothing so much as a revolt. 

In Franconia an association called the Bundschuh (1476), and 
the peasant association in Swabia, from 1492 to 15 14, guided the 
insurrections at Kempten in Bavaria, in Alsace, Wurtemberg, and 
the Black Forest. A counter-league of Swabian nobles, in re- 
taliation for the cruelties of the peasants, visited horrible punish- 
ments upon them. The nobles triumphed, to be sure, but the 
general exasperation persisted, ready to break out upon the first 
favorable opportunity, and the occasion for expressing this wide- 
spread discontent in Germany now presented itself in the issue 
raised by Martin Luther. 

3. Luther's Personality. — The struggle against Rome had 
actually commenced in Switzerland in 15 18, but the extraordinary 
personality of Luther, the very important stage upon which his 
part was played and the great interests which gathered round him, 
explain how it was that the cure of Glaris, Zwingli, whose action 
was contemporary although independent of the German reformer's, 
has been relegated to a second place in history. 

Martin Luther, born at Eisleben, November 10, 1483, be- 
longed to a peasant family of Thuringia. In spite of their humble 
circumstances they had him educated, and at the University of 
Erfurt he was one of the students who was living upon pious 



LUTHER'S RELIGIOUS IDEAS 311 

foundations and the gifts of charitable persons. In his studies 
and in his philosophy of life he had no marked leanings to the 
humanists, although in his later reforms they were his natural 
allies. His personality was striking. He was eloquent and per- 
suasive whether he spoke or wrote, and his tender-hearted and 
demonstrative nature did not conceal either the vivid imagination 
of his mind or the intrepid daring of his soul. Luther's uncom- 
promising conviction and the audacity of his spirit was an in- 
dispensable factor in the religious reformation. Indeed, without his 
personality the Protestant revolt, at least at this time, is incon- 
ceivable. 

4. Luther's Religious Ideas. — Whether or not it was be- 
cause he was spared by a thunderbolt in the midst of a terrible 
tempest, as tradition says, Luther for some urgent consideration 
felt himself called by God, and, abandoning the study of law, 
suddenly entered the monastery of the Order of Augustinian Friars 
at Erfurt. Here he became saturated with the doctrine of Saint 
Augustine, which assigns to faith and to divine grace the chief rôle 
in the salvation of the soul. That doctrine, which denies neithet 
the importance of good works nor the freedom of the human will, 
but which rather assigns to them a second place, has never been 
taxed with heresy in the case of Augustine, but it has inspired a 
great many heretics, from Gottschalk to the Jansenists who, like 
Luther, sacrificed free-will and " good-works " in order to admit 
of no other means of salvation than justification by faith, the fruit 
of grace. In Luther's time there had been " a strong inclination 
to believe that God might be best propitiated by various outward 
acts, fasts, giving of alms, attendance at church ceremonies, the 
veneration of relics, the making of pilgrimages, etc. It was, more- 
over, the teaching of the Church that prayers, fasts, masses, pil- 
grimages, and other ' good works ' might be accumulated and 
form a treasury of spiritual goods. Those who were wanting in 
good deeds might therefore have their deficiencies offset by the 
inexhaustible surplus of righteous deeds w^hich had been created by 
Christ and the saints." It was upon this inexhaustible treasury 
that the pope drew when he granted indulgences. 

Luther, tormented in spirit, had struggled with tremendous 
earnestness to obtain internal peace and sanctification, the desire 
for which had troubled all the partisans of reform in the Church 



312 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

for the preceding two centuries. Having vainly sought to obtain 
relief for the torture of his soul in these good works, macerations, 
and the observances of the Church, he found in the doctrine of 
justification by faith what seemed to him to be the only solution 
for a religious problem which was then vexing the Christian world. 
He was compelled to deny that the good deeds of the saints formed 
a treasury upon which the pope could draw for the benefit of faith- 
ful Catholics, and consequently asserted that the Church had no 
right to bestow indulgences, which were based upon these merits. 

Luther's entire doctrinal system involved two cardinal points: 
( I ) the acceptance of the Holy Scriptures as the sole authority 
in religious matters; and (2) the right of the individual to inter- 
pret the meaning of the Scriptures for himself. They drew the 
issue clearly, inasmuch as these principles were a direct challenge 
to the hitherto accepted position of the Church upon both these 
points. For the Church had maintained ( i ) that the authority 
of the pope, the utterances of Church Councils, and the writings 
of the Church Fathers, that is to say, tradition, should be taken 
along with the Scriptures in determining all questions concerning 
the belief and the organization of the Church; and (2) that the 
individual could not rightly interpret these authorities for himself, 
but in all spiritual matters must submit to what the Church 
taught him to believe. 

In opposing this teaching Luther was led logically to a position 
which abolished the priestly caste, discredited the importance of 
the sacramental system, good works, alms, and the ceremonials of 
religion, even. For the essence of Luther's doctrine is to be found 
in his insistence that a direct bond, without priestly mediation, 
exists between the soul and God. 

This principle involved vital economic interests, also, since it 
necessarily led to an attack on the vast endowment in church lands 
upon which the entire ecclesiastical system was supported. More- 
over, since practically every interest in life had been bound up with 
a church control of life the inevitable change, already begun, from 
an ecclesiastical to a secular regulation of society, involved as well 
a profound social revolution. 

5. The Question of Indulgences. — In 1508, his talents as a 
preacher secured Luther a call as professor from the Vicar Gen- 
eral of the Augustinians, the scholarly Staupitz, to the University 



THE NINETY-FIVE THESES 313 

of Wittenberg, which the Elector, Frederick the Wise, had just 
founded. Sent, in 15 11, to Rome upon business of the order, he 
was scandah'zed by the morals of the pontifical court. About the 
same time he read the critical edition of the New Testament of 
Erasmus, and found himself compelled to reject all authority in 
matters of faith excepting only the text of the Holy Scriptures. 
At this moment Leo X, in order to meet the expenses of building 
the dome of Saint Peter's, announced a general sale of indulgences 
for souls in purgatory. It was essentially a financial enterprise, 
and the pope secured the support of the princes by giving to them 
a proportionate part of the money collected. To the Dominicans, 
who, by their preaching journeys, knew best the temperaments of 
the different people, he intrusted the responsibility for launching 
the enterprise in their own fashion providing only the results were 
satisfactory. In order to understand the indulgence, it must be re- 
membered that " the priest had the right to forgive the sin of the 
truly contrite sinner who had duly confessed his evil deeds. 
Absolution freed the sinner from the deadly guilt which would 
otherwise have dragged him down to hell, but it did not free him 
from the penalties which God, or his representative the priest, 
might choose to impose upon him. Serious penances had earlier 
been imposed by the Church for wrongdoing, but in Luther's time 
the sinner who had been absolved was chiefly afraid of the suffer- 
ings reserved for him in purgatory. It was there that his soul would 
be purified by suffering and prepared for heaven. The indulgence 
was a pardon, usually granted by the pope, through which the 
contrite sinner escaped a part or all of the punishment which 
remained even after he had been absolved. . . . The first 
indulgences for the dead had been granted shortly before the time 
of Luther's birth. By securing one of these, the relatives and 
friends of those in purgatory might reduce the period of torment 
which the sufferers had to undergo before they could be admitted 
to heaven" (Robinson, Western Europe). 

It will be seen readily what a universal demand there was for 
indulgences both for the living and the dead, and what profound 
interest any public discussion of the subject would at once secure. 

6. The Ninety-five Theses. — The young archbishop of 
Mayence, the liberal and educated Albert of Brandenburg, 
had control of the general sale of indulgences in Germany 



314 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

while the great bankers of Augsburg, the Fuggers, made banking 
arrangements for the funds. A Dominican by the name of Tetzel 
was responsible for the preaching and the actual sale of the in- 
dulgences. He was accustomed to enter the towns triumphantly 
in a chariot, and while his clerks were registering the gifts, he 
explained to the crowd all the advantages which attached to the 
purchase of an indulgence. His well-known phrase was, *' Every 
time that a florin falls into my money chest, a soul is freed from 
purgatory" (15 17). The scandal roused was tremendous, espe- 
cially among the Augustinians, already ill-disposed to the doctrine 
of ** works," and that is the true meaning of the expression of 
Leo X, who said, regarding the controversy, '' It is only a quarrel 
among the monks." Luther took upon himself the responsibility 
for protesting not only in the name of his Order, but in the name 
of a great many Catholics to whom this traffic in holy things was 
repugnant. On October 31st, 15 17, as Tetzel was approaching 
Wittenberg, the Augustinian monk, profiting by the great number 
of visitors drawn there by the relics, solemnly crossed the street 
of the town and nailed upon the doors of the cathedral ninety-five 
propositions, or theses, against indulgences. The next day he 
preached upon the same subject, and the Elector, upright and 
unyielding in disposition, although he foresaw the consequences 
of the struggle, forbade Tetzel to enter his territory. 

Luther's studies in Church history had led him to question the 
whole matter of the sale of indulgences and the pope's authority 
to grant them. As much as anything else to get an objective 
view of his own position he wrote out a series of statements or 
denials on the subject and nailed them up to public view for dis- 
cussion. He did not mean to attack the Church and apparently 
he had no idea of the commotion they were destined to raise. To 
his surprise, therefore, he found that every one was interested, 
and the theses, written originally in Latin for scholars, were at 
once translated into German and read throughout Europe. 

This was the first step toward the Reformation. Nevertheless, 
Luther had no intention of proceeding further in his resistance to 
the pardoners, but in 15 18 there arrived at Wittenberg the 
humanist, Melanchthon (Philip Schwarzerde), at the same time an 
hebraist and hellenist, and he gave an entirely new force to Luther's 
ideas. Simpler and more kindly, but less capable of directing the 



THE IMPERIAL ELECTION OF 1519 315 

crowd, Melanchthon knew religious history far better and was 
more accustomed to reflection. He was the theorist of the Refor- 
mation. 

The quarrel concerning indulgences occupied the whole of the 
year 15 18, although Leo X at first gave himself very little concern 
about it, and according to certain historic words of his, which must 
be nevertheless regarded with some suspicion, even admired the 
bold spirit of Luther. Maximilian had been more far-sighted 
and had rejoiced before his death in the revolution which was 
preparing, and which was to avenge him upon the Papacy. 

7. The Leipzig Disputation (1519). — At a time when 
Luther was still tormented with doubt as to just how far his 
position upon the subject of the indulgences would lead him logi- 
cally, he received a challenge from a debater of European reputa- 
tion, John Eck, to dispute at Leipzig upon the primacy and 
authority of the pope. Luther accepted gladly. The debate took 
place July 4th, 15 19. In some respects it was the most important 
event in Luther's career, for, in the course of the discussion, Eck 
succeeded in forcing him to admit that his views were similar to 
those of John Hus which had been condemned as heresy in the 
Council of Constance. Luther then saw clearly to what conclusion 
his opposition to the indulgences led. " His attack was no criticism 
of a mere excrescence on the mediaeval ecclesiastical system. He 
had struck at its center; at its ideas of a priestly mediation, which 
denied the right of every believer to immediate entrance into the 
very presence of God " (Lindsay, History of the Reformation) . 

8. The Imperial Election of 1519. — The imperial election, 
crowded aside the question of indulgences for the time being. The 
Austrian candidate was king of Spain, Naples, and Bohemia. 
Designated as the heir to Hungary, he had claims upon the 
Milanais, and was master of Franche-Comté, and the Belgian 
and Holland Low Countries. The German princes found him too 
powerful, although as yet they knew him very little. Born in 
1500 at Ghent, Charles of Austria was not yet twenty years old. 
In Spain, where he had intrusted himself to the political mal- 
adroitness of his Flemish favorites, the lords of Chièvres, his con- 
duct had aroused in Catalonia a revolt which lasted until 1521, 
but nothing indicated, as yet, either his talents as a statesman, or 
his ambition and tenacity. 



3i6 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

He had as competitors Henry VIII of England, not a serious 
rival, and Francis I, the hero of Europe since Marignano, but 
whom feudal Germany had reason to distrust rather more than^ 
it feared Charles of Spain. Nevertheless, several of the electors, 
particularly the archbishop of Mayence, w^ere very avaricious. 
The king of France was rich, and he intrusted to one of his 
representatives at Frankfort the task of buying up secretly the 
consciences of those opposed to him, while the other believed that 
he could carry off the election by making capital of the glory of 
his master. Charles made use of clinking arguments as well, and 
the Fuggers served him as bankers. In the midst of this bidding 
and counter-bidding, the German national sentiment finally tri- 
umphed when the grandson of Maximilian was elected. For the 
sake of appearances, however, the electors at first chose Frederick 
of Saxony, whose invincible repugnance to the imperial crown was 
well known. He refused, of course, but, intrusted with the rôle 
of arbitrator, he designated Charles of Austria, who was elected 
February 28th, 15 19, as Charles V. 

9. Luther's Breach with Rome. — During the agitation which 
the imperial election had caused throughout Europe, Luther made 
preparations for resuming the religious controversy by studying 
the writings of Wyclif and Hus. He found in them the same 
protests as his own against '' works " and papal infallibility. His 
convictions thereupon took on an added firmness, and these he set 
forth in ''An Address to the Emperor and to the Christian 
Nobility of the German Nation'' written in Latin and German. 
Here he attacked especially the political and financial rights of the 
pope. Then he wrote in the familiar, eloquent, and persuasive style, 
which was his most powerful means of propaganda, the pamphlet 
entitled '' The Babylonian Captivity of the Church of God." In it 
the pope was treated as a usurper, and for the first time Luther 
asserted that the Scriptures sanction but three sacraments : Baptism, 
penance, and the Lord's Supper. Finally, in October, 1520, he 
wrote '' The Liberty of a Christian Manf* This treatise con- 
tains a statement of the essential consequence of the doctrine of 
justification by faith, that is, the priesthood of all believers, — 
*' Every man is a priest." Luther had been persuaded to write 
this out as a short summary of his inmost beliefs and to send it to 
His Holiness. It has for a preface Luther's letter to Pope Leo X, 



THE DIET OF WORMS 317 

which concludes with these words: "I, in my poverty, have no 
other present to make to you, nor do you need to be enriched by 
anything but a spiritual gift." 

These three books are very fittingly called The Three Great 
Reformation Treatises. It was easy to foresee the pope's response, 
and the papal nuncio, Aleander, was sent to Charles V with the 
bull, Exurge Domine, excommunicating the Wittenberg heretic. 
Luther refused every concession and, believing himself to be still 
a Catholic, he appealed from the pope badly informed to the 
pope better informed, from the pope to a council, and, in default 
of a council, to God Himself. Public opinion supported him in 
spite of the violence of his utterance, and when the bull arrived at 
Wittenberg Luther publicly burned it, December 10, 1520, and 
hurled anathemas against the partisans of Leo X, upon whose 
heads he heaped all the coarse epithets of which he possessed so 
rich a vocabulary. 

From all sides he received unexpected and, at times, embarrassing 
support; from the humanists of Erfurt, and especially from the 
knight, Ulrich von Hutten, who attacked Rome in the name of 
German liberties, and who had already struck rough blows at 
orthodoxy and the religious orders in what in part, at least, is his 
satire, the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum. 

10. The Diet of Worms. — Charles V, undecided up to that 
time, feared that there would thus be added to the religious con- 
troversy a political demonstration by the knights, who were very 
favorable to Luther, together with a new social uprising of the 
peasants whose exasperation was only awaiting some plausible pre- 
text for revolt. He, therefore, resolved to bring matters to an 
issue at the Diet which opened January 28th, 1521, at Worms. 
There was, besides other questions, a need for the definite regu- 
lation of the question of the Regency and of the Vicariate of the 
Empire, a need rendered imperative by the frequent absence of the 
emperor from Germany. These difficulties, so troublesome during 
the reign of Maximilian, were at this time easily settled, for 
every one knew that the weight of the discussion would rest upon 
the religious question. The legate Aleander and the emperor 
hoped to find a simple and ready solution for the difficulty by pro- 
posing to the Diet that there should be an immediate and military 
execution of the bull, but the majority of the German princes, en- 



3i8 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

lightened by a virulent pamphlet of Hutten's, demanded that 
Luther should be heard, and Charles V gave way by citing him to 
appear at Worms in the month of April, 1521. 

11. Luther at Worms. — The imperial herald then brought 
him a safe-conduct, and the monk, leaving with Melanchthon the 
responsibility for continuing the struggle in case he should not 
return, set out for Worms in spite of the memory of what hap- 
pened to John Hus. His journey was greeted with manifestations 
of universal sympathy. His life, indeed, appeared to be seriously 
threatened, and he himself, on several occasions, had to repulse 
what he called " the temptations of the devil," that is to say, the 
thought of retracing his steps. Nevertheless, he ended by resolving 
to enter Worms '' if there were on the roofs as many devils as 
there were tiles " ; and he made his entry into the town in the 
midst of a sympathetic crowd of princes and knights, who were 
already preparing to screen their struggle for independence behind 
the religious resistance of the reformer. The next day, April 17th, 
1 52 1, Luther appeared before the emperor, the electors, and the 
prelates, and he seemed to be intimidated, yet he designedly de- 
manded a day in which to prepare his response. His friends feared 
that he would make a retraction, but he reassured them, and, on 
April 1 8th, at the Diet in the presence of the emperor and the 
princes, boldly refused to recant his written assertions. He re- 
peated his profession of faith in Latin for the emperor, who did not 
understand German well enough to follow the points. Pressed 
closely to retract, Luther is reported to have responded with dra- 
matic effect: "Hie stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders tun, Gott 
helfe mir, Amen " (Here I stand, I can do naught else, God help 
me. Amen). 

12. The Condemnation of Luther. — The decision of the 
emperor was delivered the next day; it was naturally unfavor- 
able to Luther; but, in the face of the friendly attitude of 
the knights and the people, the emperor did not dare to vio- 
late the safe-conduct which he had given. Luther was there- 
fore allowed to remain several days at Worms in the hope that 
he might change his mind. He persisted, however, and, on 
April 27th, received orders to return to Wittenberg. Charles V 
then placed him under the ban of the Empire, but by this time the 
reformer was already safe, since the elector of Saxony had had 



THE PEASANTS' WAR 319 

him secretly carried off, almost at the gates of the city of Worms, 
and transported into the heart of Thuringia to the castle of the 
Wartburg. Here he lived in disguise for two years. Up to this 
time he had been exclusively militant, but now he was able to 
collect and arrange the dogmatic elements upon which Lutheran- 
ism rests. While he was in the Wartburg he began the transla- 
tion of the Bible. The New Testament was completely translated, 
though the Bible, as a whole, did not appear until 1534. This 
translation marks the birth of modern German literature. Luther 
jgave to Germany her literary language as Dante gave hers 
to Italy, and Luther's Bible is a date in the history of German 
unity. 

13. The Sacramentarians. — The absence of Luther was the 
occasion for serious embarrassment to the reformers who took his 
place at W^ittenberg. Although they had admitted in principle 
the free interpretation of the Scriptures by every one, there were 
certain limits beyond which they did not recognize Christianity, 
and these limits were transcended by an old admirer of Luther, 
Carlstadt, who had been influenced by the prophecies of a visionary, 
Nicholas Storch of Zwickau. He formed the sect of the " Sacra- 
mentarians," who admitted no other sacrament than that of bap- 
tism, no other authority than that of the inspired prophets, no 
other religious service than that of preaching, and demanded the 
destruction of sacred images. Melanchthon was not a man of 
combat. Luther, therefore, in 1522, left his retreat in order to 
arrest the progress of " those instruments of the devil," the 
prophets of Zwickau, and had them driven out of Wittenberg, 
where their presence was causing daily contention. 

14. The Peasants' War. — The Sacramentarians, however, 
had behind them all those classes in which the Reformation had 
excited hopes. A peasant, Thomas Miinzer, by name, aroused the 
unhappy serfs of Bohemia, Franconia, Swabia, and Thuringia, by 
appealing to the equality of mankind as it is set forth in the New 
Testament. Their uprising coincided with the rising of the 
knights. Franz von Sickingen (1522) suddenly laid siege to the 
Elector of Treves, was repulsed and killed while defending his 
castle of Landstuhl (1523). Hutten died soon after at Zurich 
(1523), and the knights resigned themselves to remain either in 
the service of the emperor, or to participate as individuals in other 



320 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

campaigns. The insurrectionary peasants of Swabia formulated 
their grievances and presented to their lords the following demands, 
known as the twelve articles: the diminution of the tithes, and of 
compulsory labor; the rights of the chase, fishing, and taking 
wood in the forests; a reduction of the penal code; personal 
liberty; and the right of electing the priests. Failing to obtain 
redress the peasants revolted in several regions at the same time 
in Swabia, Franconia, Thuringia, Alsace, and Saxony. The up- 
rising was favored by Duke Ulrich of Wurtemberg, who had been 
despoiled of his duchy, and by the knights, as for example, by Goetz 
von Berlichingen. They hoped to have the support of Luther 
and of Frederick the Wise, but Frederick died in May, 1525. 
He had contented himself with recommending moderation to his 
brother John; and Luther, who had at first echoed and sym- 
pathized with the just complaints of the peasants, now declared 
himself opposed to them with savage energy when he saw them 
sacking the churches, the monasteries, and castles, and burning their 
libraries. He roused against these misguided people all the terri- 
torial princes of Germany whose support he knew was essential to 
the success of the Reformation. As a result the peasants were 
everywhere crushed. At Saverne, the duke of Lorraine massacred 
eighteen thousand of them, while the bands of Thomas Miinzer 
were annihilated at Frankenhausen in Thuringia. George 
Truchsess and Casimir of Brandenburg put an end to the revolt in 
Swabia. By June, 1525, the peasants' war was over. Luther clearly 
understood that the Reformation could not succeed by means of 
a popular uprising. Yet he lacked any military and political force, 
and this he determined to obtain by means of the support of the 
princes. The Reformation was thus obliged to make certain 
compromises and concessions to the ruling princes; but it found 
a solid basis in Germany, and made conquests throughout the 
whole of Europe. 

15. The Diet of Speyer. — Luther's followers turned to their 
own profit the dangers which threatened Germany and the im- 
prudent support which Pope Clement VII had given to France. It 
was at this time that, due to the instigation of the regency of 
France, the Mussulmans were threatening Germany, while the 
rupture of the treaty of Madrid, taken with the alliance of Francis 
I and Clement VII, temporarily brought together the emperor and 



THE DIET OF 1530 321 

the supporters of religious reform. At the Diet of Speyer, in 
1526, Charles V assigned to his brother Ferdinand, less involved 
than he with the Catholics, the task of signing a decree which 
permitted to the German princes the right of suspending within 
their territories the decision taken against Luther; this was very 
nearly the famous principle formulated later in the terms: cujus 
regio ejus religio. The knights favored the political break be- 
tween the emperor and the pope, and it was the Lutheran, George 
Frundsberg, who brought to Constable BourbOn the German 
troops, which pillaged Rome in 1527, in the name of his most 
Catholic Majesty. 

16. The Protestant Princes. — Yet in his heart Charles V 
protested against this temporary alliance. The Diet of 1526 was 
in the main favorable to the Lutheran movement. John of 
Saxony had declared openly for the new ideas, while the landgrave, 
Philip of Hesse, and the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, 
Albert of Hohenzollern, followed his example. They replaced 
the Roman offices of the Church by religious hymns which Luther 
had composed. The convents were deserted, the priests and nuns 
married, and ecclesiastical property was secularized, usually for 
the profit of the princes. Albert of Hohenzollern, in taking a 
wife, transformed the important possessions of his Order into an 
hereditary duchy, Prussia, which in the XVH century was trans- 
ferred to the collateral line of his family ruling in Brandenburg. 
The emperor was thus facing, not only a great religious move- 
ment, but a campaign of aggrandizement on the part of a certain 
number of his vassals. The second Diet of Speyer (1529) was 
called to meet this danger. The secularization of church land 
was forbidden, and the liberty already granted to the princes of 
withholding the execution of the sentence pronounced against 
Luther was withdrawn. Against this action the minority at the 
Diet drew up a formal protest, which gave to the reformers the 
name of " protestants." Nevertheless, the approach of the Turks 
prevented a resort to arms. 

17. The Diet of 1530.— In the following year Charles V, the 
conqueror of Solyman, since he was reconciled with Clement and 
was for the moment at peace with France, felt that the time had 
come for him to bring the religious question to a conclusion. It 
was with this object in view that he summoned the Diet of Augs- 



322 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

burg. There was apparent upon both sides a rather vague desire 
for conciliation; but it was first necessary to understand in some 
precise manner just what was meant by the propositions advanced 
by the reformers, which, up to this time, had only been brought 
forward according to the exigencies of the struggle, and had not 
yet taken the form of a body of doctrines. Luther came as far as 
Coburg, but he would go no farther. Melanchthon, whose mod- 
eration was well known, was intrusted with the responsibility for 
setting before the emperor the Protestant dogmas. He made use 
of the Small and the Great Catechism drawn up by Luther in 
1529, and certain notes recognized under the name of " the articles 
of Marburg and of Torgau," in which the differences which sep- 
arated the reformers of Wittenberg from the Swiss Zwingli and 
the Alsatian Bucer were stated. The twenty-eight articles of 
this exposition, which soon after became the Confession of Augs- 
burg, were presented to Charles V, June 25th, 1530. 

18. The Confession of Augsburg (1530). — The style of the 
Confession of Augsburg is simple, dignified, and not at all aggres- 
sive. Its text was modified in 1536 by the Articles of Schmalkalde, 
in which Luther emphasized his dissent from the Catholics upon the 
subject of the Lord's Supper, and Melanchthon remodeled his 
work in 1540. Finally, in 1547, the " Formula of Concord " fixed 
the Lutheran doctrine. The articles of 1530 were inspired by 
considerations of conciliation. Melanchthon did not attack in 
them the episcopal hierarchy, and the real presence of the divine 
body in the consecrated host was not absolutely denied, for the 
reformers admitted that the flesh and blood were communicated 
to the Eucharist by what was called impanation and invination; 
but they insisted, without reservation, upon the right of the faithful 
to take communion in both kinds (the wine and the bread), and 
upon the marriage of the clergy. They refused, moreover, to 
recognize the principle of justification by works, and denied papal 
infallibility. In the minds of the Catholic theologians, Campeggio, 
Eck, and Cochlaeus, nothing at all was gained by this considera- 
tion. An imperial decree then renewed the condemnation of 
Worms, placed upon the Protestant princes the responsibility for 
any delay which should take place in restoring the secularized 
church property and for the execution of the sentence pronounced 
against Luther. The Diet was dissolved, November i6th, 1530, 



JOHN OF LEYDEN 323 

without having brought about any improvement in the situa- 
tion. 

19. The Schmalkaldic War. — The elector of Saxony, the 
landgrave of Hesse, the princes of Anhalt, Joachim H of Branden- 
burg, Ulrich of Wurtemberg, and the Protestant towns, especially 
Constance, Nuremberg, Strasburg, and Ulm, insisted that they 
would not restore the secularized land. All these interests formed, 
in 1532, the Schmalkaldic League, under the pretense of protesting, 
in case of need by recourse to arms, against the election of Ferdi- 
nand of Austria as King of the Romans, and counted upon the 
support of Francis I. A new threat of Turkish aggression then 
led to the peace of Nuremberg, which lasted for two years. But, 
in 1534, Philip of Hesse began the war called the " Schmalkaldic 
war," for the purpose of re-establishing Ulrich of Wurtemberg 
in his possessions, which had been confiscated by the emperor. 

Hostilities were soon suspended on account of a new popular 
uprising, and in the treaty of Cadan, July, 1534, Charles V 
granted to the confederates the possession, for the time at least, 
of their religious and material advantages. 

20. The Anabaptists of Miinster. — The new sectaries, 
whose revolt had just suspended the Schmalkaldic war, were like 
the peasants of 1525, anabaptists; that is to say, they recognized no 
other sacrament than that of baptism, given at the age of discre- 
tion ; but in 1535 the movement took on the further character of 
a social revolution. The last disciples of Miinzer and Storch had 
taken refuge in the Low Countries. There they were reorganized 
by two adroit fanatics, who were absolutely without scruples, and 
were greedy for power and wealth, John Matthiessen and John 
Bocholt of Leyden. Returned to Germany they formed a veritable 
communistic army, and determined to make an attack on wealth. 
These Anabaptists now took possession of the principal town of 
Westphalia, Miinster, whose bishop, Franz von Waldeck, was at 
the same time a firm supporter of the Catholic party and one of the 
most powerful territorial lords of the northern part of Germany. 
Successful here the rebels installed themselves as masters and 
disposed of the riches, not only of the monks and the churches, 
but also of the tradespeople. 

21. John of Leyden. — The bishop obtained support from the 
princes, from the towns, and even from the Protestants, whom 



324 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

Luther had encouraged to serve against the Anabaptists. Munster 
was besieged, and John Matthiessen was killed in a sortie. John 
Bocholt or " John of Leyden " as he was often called, produced 
a prophecy in which he claimed that he was designated to exercise 
absolute authority in the name of God, had himself crowned in 
the midst of fêtes which degenerated into orgies, and proclaimed the 
communality of goods and polygamy, which he himself practised. 
His authority was maintained by means of terror; but it was im- 
possible for him to hold possession of Miinster, and the city was 
taken by an assault in which he perished miserably among those 
who were executed. The Anabaptists, however, survived the 
prophet, and they form, even today, a sect which is distinguished 
by the strictness of its morals, the simplicity of its religion, and 
its horror of blood. 

22. Luther's Death (1546). — In opposing the Anabaptists, 
Luther recoiled before the final consequence of the movement for 
independence which he had provoked, inasmuch as he wished to 
assure the alliance of the temporal princes with the reform move- 
ment. With them he was sometimes too pliant, as when he 
approved of the bigamy of the landgrave of Hesse, whose private 
conduct brought very little credit to the new religion. It is true, 
however, that this was one of the difficulties of the situation. Mar- 
ried, himself, for the sake of the example which he set, in 1524, to 
Catharine von Bora, a nun who had left the convent, he made him- 
self universally respected by the dignity of his family life. Cruelly 
wounded by the death of his daughter at the age of twenty, he died 
shortly after in 1546. 

23. Maurice of Saxony. — Francis I died in 1547. Charles V, 
thus relieved of two antagonists, set about to put into effect his 
plans against the Protestants. His first chancellor, Gattinara, had 
been wise and moderate. After him, in 1530, he gave his con- 
fidence to two shrewd and experienced men, father and son ; 
Nicholas Perrenot Granvella, who was chancellor from 1530 to 
1550, and his son Cardinal de Granvella, later Bishop of Malines, 
who supplanted his father and succeeded him. But the emperor 
submitted also at that time to the influence of one of the men of 
the XVI century, who, as fortunate soldiers and too able politicians, 
made sport of their promises and of their religion by an audacity 
of unexpected lying. Maurice of Saxony had conceived the idea 



THE INTERIM OF 1548 325 

of taking away the electorate of Saxony from his cousin, John 
Frederick, the last prince of the eldest, or Ernestine line. They 
were both Protestants, and Maurice was the son-in-law of the 
landgrave of Hesse. Nevertheless, he declared for Charles in 1547. 
Full of confidence in this brilliant captain, whose youth and 
courage he loved, and urged on by the most trusted of his Spanish 
generals, the duke of Alva, an implacable enemy of the Reforma- 
tion, the emperor called upon the confederates of Schmalkalde to 
dissolve their league, and, upon their refusal, invaded the electorate 
of Saxony. 

24. The Battle of Muhlberg. — The two armies met near the 
Elbe, between Dresden and Wittenberg, April 23d, 1547, at Muhl- 
berg, where the impetuosity of Maurice and the energy of the duke 
of Alva gave the victory to the imperialists. John Frederick was 
taken, and because his wife, a princess of Brunswick, remained 
stubbornly in Wittenberg, Charles V condemned him to death. 
The electress, crushed by that sentence, came to the imperial camp 
and obtained the concession that her husband should resign the 
electorate into the hands of Maurice; but John Frederick refused 
to abjure his Protestantism, and died in captivity, having been 
compelled to follow in the triumphal procession of Charles through- 
out the whole of Germany. Philip of Hesse hoped to avoid the 
same fate by humiliating himself. Casting himself upon his knees 
before Charles he subscribed to all the conditions which Granvella, 
then bishop of Arras, was responsible for imposing upon the re- 
formed party. Nevertheless, upon the advice of this prelate, he was 
kept a prisoner and shared, at first, the captivity of John Frederick. 

25. The Interim of 1548. — To achieve the ruin of Protes- 
tantism Charles V counted upon the General Church Council, 
which, located at first in Trent, had just been transferred to 
Bologna. While awaiting its decisions, he desired to make a 
temporary adjustment of the religious question himself, and on 
the day following the battle of Muhlberg, he rendered obligatory 
upon the princes the twenty-six articles of the Interim of Augs- 
burg. These articles offended the Catholics by their relatively con- 
ciliatory form, and the Protestants by taking away from them the 
advantages of the Diet of Speyer and the treaty of Cadan. 
Maurice, whose ambition had been satisfied, was, besides this, pro- 
foundly German, and he showed himself hostile to the presence 



326 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

in the Empire of the Spaniards of the duke of Alva, while, at the 
same time, he came to an understanding with the Protestants. 
Intrusted by the emperor with the responsibility for forcing the 
burghers of Magdeburg to accept the Interim, he took the town, 
but he imposed upon it conditions which were so easy as to be 
equivalent to toleration, and the year following he was one of 
the princes who supported Ferdinand of Austria when Ferdinand 
refused to give up the title of King of the Romans to the Prince 
of Asturias, Philip. Charles V, whether through prudence or 
affection, did not appear to be annoyed with the young elector. 
Nevertheless, he did not allow his indulgence to turn him aside 
from his aims. Maurice secretly re-formed the Schmalkaldic 
League, signed treaties with Henry II, king of France, and, sud- 
denly taking up arms, just failed to lay his hands upon the emperor 
at Innsbruck. Charles V, sick and profoundly saddened by the 
ingratitude of the elector, had only time to have himself trans- 
ported in a litter to Villach. This treason overcame his obstinacy, 
and he charged his brother to sign the peace of Passau (1552). 
Across all the diplomatic protocols and verbal precautions is to be 
read the toleration which was accorded to the Lutherans. 

26. The Peace of Augsburg (1555). — Maurice died two 
years later, at the age of thirty-two, 1554; but the results which he 
had brought about survived him, and Charles V, upon the point 
of abdicating the Imperial throne, had to renounce the right of 
transmitting to his son, Philip, the hereditary domain of the Haps- 
burgs. Ferdinand, to whom he had been forced to abandon them, 
together with the empire, regulated in a definite manner, for a half 
century at least, the political questions raised by the Reformation. 

By the peace of Augsburg the Lutheran princes secured the 
confirmation of the principle, cujus regio ejus religio (each region 
takes the religion of its prince). A Protestant or Catholic lord, 
or the Senate of a free town, might permit within the limits of its 
jurisdiction the exercise of its personal religion only. In the 
Catholic states, the Lutheran nobleman was obliged to perform 
the duties of his religion strictly within the interior of his castle. 
The clause called the ecclesiastical reservation recognized only 
past secularizations of church lands. From that time on (and this 
restriction applied specifically to the archbishop of Cologne, Her- 
mann von Wied) every Catholic beneficiary who passed over to 



EVANGELISM 327 

Protestantism was to abandon his bishopric or his abbej^ This 
disposition, seemingly legitimate, was one of the chief causes of the 
Thirty Years' War in the XVII century. It is thus plainly evident 
how greatly the Lutheran Reformation was complicated in Ger- 
many by the question of the ownership of church lands. 

27. The Reformation in Switzerland. — In Switzerland, it 
was not the same. There, the religious question was the main 
issue; Protestantism there was more liberal with Zwingli, more 
dogmatic and more austere with Calvin. 

The decadence of the Roman Church had aroused violent protests 
in Switzerland, where the Councils of Constance, and of Basel, 
had left a profound and lasting impression. The simplicity of 
manners and the democratic spirit of the Swiss placed them in 
opposition to the brilliant, aristocratic, and dissolute Italy of the 
Renaissance. The whole worldly life of the warrior-prelates, 
such as the Cardinal Bishop of Sion, Mathias Schinner, the enemy 
of Louis XII, and a violent partisan of the Holy See; the greedy 
and brutal habits of the Swiss mercenaries, who enrolled them- 
selves in the service of the Italian princes, the popes, and the 
Empire; and the disorders in certain monasteries, aroused in the 
cantons of the northeast a reform movement which was at the same 
time political, patriotic, and religious. 

28. Zwingli. — There was a priest, Ulrich Zzuingli, curé of 
Zurich, who made himself the mouthpiece of these protests, and 
was led, like Luther, to separate himself from Catholicism. Born 
in the Toggenburg, in 1484, educated by the humanists at Basel 
and at Vienna, he owed to this education a breadth of view rare 
enough in the leader of a sect. Curé of Glaris, in 1506, he de- 
voted himself to the study of Plato and Seneca, and considered 
Stoicism as a nearer approach to the ideal of Christianity than 
the scholasticism of the Middle Ages. As curé of Zurich, in 
15 18, he preached an ethical and philosophical Christianity, taking 
for illustration certain practices and ceremonies which he treated 
as pure idolatry. He soon made his attacks specific, sent back the 
pension of the Holy See which he received as almoner of the 
Swiss troops, and made eloquent speeches against contracts for 
mercenary soldiers. 

29. Evangelism. — He showed himself more active still against 
the dispenser of indulgences for Switzerland, Bernard Sampson, 



328 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

who did not dare to enter Zurich. Finally, his doctrine took 
definite form. He reduced religious worship to the preaching of 
the Gospel, retained the sacrament of baptism only, denied the 
supremacy of Rome, and declared himself opposed to the celibacy 
of the clergy. He himself married. Having become all-powerful 
in Zurich, he placed at the disposal of the government the prop- 
erty of his church, which served for a foundation of an advanced 
school, the Carolinum. He resisted the communistic tendencies of 
the Anabaptists, protected th? Catholics against the zeal of his fol- 
lowers, and attempted to emancipate the country without shock and 
without revolution. This moderation was a powerful means of 
propaganda, and evangelism spread to Saint Gall, Glaris, Appenzel, 
Schaffhausen, and Basel, where it raised up his most illustrious 
disciple, the humanist, Oecolampada. 

30. Luther and Zwingli. — Zwingli had enemies in Luther 
and in the Catholics of the Swiss Forest Cantons. For Luther, the 
Evangelists were too close to the Sacramentarians. Zwingli re- 
jected the Lutheran impanation and invination, and refused all 
divine character to the priesthood, while the German reformer con- 
sidered the formation of a consecrated clergy as indispensable to a 
Christian doctrine. Finally, the almost philosophical liberalism of 
Zwingli was opposed to the establishment of orthodoxy, which the 
dominating spirit of Luther had desired to impose upon all the 
reformed churches. He had convened, in 1529, all the leaders of 
the movement, in " the colloquy at Marburg," for the purpose of 
establishing this unity, but he refused to make any concession, and 
violently repulsed Zwingli, whom he loaded from that time on 
with anathemas. 

3L The Battle of Kappel. — In Switzerland, the profoundly 
Catholic Forest Cantons were touched in their worldly interests 
by the preaching of the curé of Zurich against the mercenaries, and 
they allied themselves under arms with Austria. The first time 
the two parties met, near Kappel, the recollection of their inde- 
pendence abruptly terminated the hostilities, and peace was signed 
upon the basis of mutual toleration (1529). Zwingli, in order 
to prevent further hostilities between the Cantons, dreamed of giv- 
ing greater force to the Confederation ; the five Catholic Cantons, 
however, felt that they were seriously attacked in their enjoyment 
gf autonomy. They declared a new war at Zurich, and impru- 



GENEVA AND CALVIN 329 

dently engaged in a battle at Kappel (1531). Zwingli's army 
was defeated and he was wounded and captured by the victors. 
His death made a martyr of him, yet by joining with the neighbor- 
ing Swiss villages and with Geneva, which had also adopted 
the principles of the Reformation, his followers saved Evan- 
gelism. 

32. Geneva and Calvin. — Geneva and Lausanne since 1525 
had been allies for the purpose of defending their citizens against 
the claims of the bishop of Geneva and Charles (III) of Savoy. 
In 1530, the bishop was expelled, and the Genevans called in a 
reformer from Dauphiny, William Farel, who had been obliged to 
leave France. Then, counting upon the support of Berne, they 
declared the bishop and the duke stripped of their rights, and in 
1535 broke with Catholicism. The country of Vaud joined with 
the canton of Berne. It was at this moment that Farel called 
Calvin to Geneva. Born in 1509, at Noyon in Picardy, destined 
from childhood for the Church, and provided with benefices, John 
Calvin (Jean Cauvin) studied at Paris, Bourges, and Orléans, 
and, under the influence of Peter Robert, who was called Olivetan, 
and other humanists imbued with Lutheran ideas, he gradually 
withdrew from the Catholic Church to identify himself exclusively 
with the doctrine of justification by faith. He combated, with 
all the vigor of a logical and judicial mind, the entire Roman 
ecclesiastical organization and all the Catholic sacraments. In 
1534, he renounced his benefices, and soon, believing himself 
threatened because of his heretical views, withdrew to Strasburg, 
then to Basel, where he wrote, in Latin, in 1535, the Institutes of 
the Christian Religion, which appeared in March, 1536. Calvin 
was twenty-five years old when he wrote the Institutes. Probably 
no book has ever been written by so young a man which has 
exerted so profound and lasting an influence. His aim was to set 
forth a profession of faith which should serve at once to unite 
the forces of Protestantism and to prove to its persecutors the 
righteousness of that cause. Francis I had asserted that his perse- 
cutions were mainly directed against the Anabaptists and others 
whose teaching called into question the authority of the civil 
magistrates. To vindicate the martyrdom of the French Prot- 
estants, whom Calvin believed the king had aspersed, he dedicated 
the work to Francis. 



330 PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE 

As the decisions of the Council of Trent upon the doctrines of 
the Roman Church served the cause of Catholicism, the Institutes 
of the Christian Religion, a precise and consistent exposition of 
the Protestant doctrine, gave definition to the Protestant belief and 
unity to its communion of believers. 

33. Calvin's Rule in Geneva. — At Geneva he soon clashed 
with the liberals, who were also called " libertines," and whose 
leader, Bertelier, compelled him to leave the city along with Farel, 
in 1538; but the Genevans very quickly discovered that their inde- 
pendence depended upon discipline, and they had the courage to 
recall Calvin in order to have him impose it upon them. He was 
granted the authority of an absolute legislator, and in this rôle he 
identified civil and religious society. Side by side with the Great 
and the Small Council which governed the city, he organized a 
Consistory composed of the pastors and twelve elders chosen by the 
Councils from their own number, who were responsible for the 
administration of the church and for the oversight of morals. An 
iron discipline was established at Geneva, and, at the end of 
twelve years of effort, Calvin succeeded in crushing the opposition 
of the libertines. The new government stopped at neither im- 
prisonments, nor exiles, nor even capital punishments. Gruet was 
beheaded as a materialist, and the celebrated Spanish doctor, 
Michael Servetus, was burned for having denied the Trinity and 
the divinity of Jesus Christ, and as a person suspected of pantheism. 
The reformers thus exhibited no more toleration than the Catholics. 
Calvin exercised at Geneva an extraordinary authority, without 
having held any public office (he did not become a citizen until 
1559)) by the sole ascendency of his character and his genius. 
The Academy which he founded became a nursery for an educated 
ministry who carried the Calvinistic doctrine into France, Switzer- 
land, Holland, and Scotland. Geneva was called " the School of 
Martyrs," and it is certain that it is to Calvin, to his doctrine, 
austere and simple even to coldness, that Protestantism owed its 
power of propaganda. 

34. Other German Reformers. — Between Luther and Calvin, 
there was room enough for many local reformers. Men filled with 
zeal and knowledge, who preached the new ideas in a more limited 
circle in their time, had frequently almost as much reputation as 
the reformers of Wittenberg, Zurich, and Geneva. Thus, Stras- 



REFORMS WITHIN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 331 

burg yielded to the influence of a humanist of the first order, 
Martin Bucer, who was calm and conciliatory. Oecolampada was 
the representative of Zwinglianism at Basel, while Budinger suc- 
ceeded Zwingli at Zurich, and joined Evangelism to the Genevan 
reformation. Thus, in Switzerland, the Reformation took on a 
character which was frankly Calvinistic. 

35. The Reformation in Denmark. — On the other hand, it 
was the Lutheran doctrine which took possession of Denmark and 
the Scandinavian lands. Christian I, a reputed tyrant, and one 
of the least superstitious princes of his time, at first had accepted 
the ideas of Luther, in the hope of secularizing church lands to his 
own profit; but he was overthrown and imprisoned by his uncle, 
Frederick I. The new king, nevertheless, allowed the Lutheran 
propaganda to spread, and, under his successor. Christian II 
(1536), the Diet of Copenhagen proclaimed Lutheranism the state 
religion, while in accordance with the theories of the Confession of 
Augsburg, it permitted bishops to remain. 

36. The Reformation in Sweden. — In setting Sweden free 
from Denmark, Gustavus Vasa, the new king, thoroughly under- 
stood that it was also to his interest to make an appeal to a religion 
which permitted royalty to increase its possessions at the expense 
of the rich Swedish clergy. He favored, therefore, the preaching 
of Luther's disciples. At the Diet of Westras the popular ma- 
jority, who hated the religious feudalism, adopted Lutheranism and 
at the Diet of Orebro (1529) the coronation of Gustavus Vasa 
coincided with the organization of the Sw^edish church. The 
king became the head of the religious organization, and the epis- 
copacy was preserved. Unfortunately for Sweden, as elsewhere, 
the religious transformation was not accomplished without perse- 
cutions. 

37. Reforms Within the Catholic Church.— The Reforma- 
tion had threatened Catholicism, not only in its influence, but in 
its very existence. The movement which was directed against the 
Papacy, at least in the beginning, did not have the question of 
dogma as its main cause, but the question of discipline. The up- 
rising which had been provoked by Zwingli and Luther and 
accentuated by Calvin, had been favored by the very general feel- 
ing which had manifested itself, especially in Italy, against the 
immoralities of the clergy, and of some of the popes. Many of 



332 THE CATHOLIC COUNTER REFORMATION ' 

the leading Catholics held identical views upon this subject with 
the Protestants: Erasmus, Thomas More, Wolsey, and many 
others, like Cardinal Ximenes, the great Spanish minister, and 
even the secretary of Charles V, Valdez. The impulse to reforma- 
tion soon affected even the pope. Upon the death of Leo X, who 
was by no means a saintly pontiff,, the elevation of Adrian of Utrecht 
(Adrian VI) appeared to inaugurate a new era of religious aus- 
terity. He died prematurely, however, and his successor, Clement 
VII, was an Italian and a Medici. Yet his morals were more 
elevated and his character more spiritual than that of a great 
many of his predecessors. 

38. The Catholic Reformers. — An internal reform move- 
ment now took place in the heart of the Catholic Church. Vigor- 
ous voices were raised in the sacred college, which called for a 
more severe discipline and a purified Church; while at the same 
time religious associations were formed on all sides for the pur- 
pose of defending Catholic unity, and of developing at the same 
time a clergy better educated and more impressed with the seri- 
ous character of its duties and with the need of maintaining 
Catholic unity. Under Paul III, the leaders of the Reforma- 
tion party resolved to make war upon the evils from which 
the Church was suffering. Juan Valdez, the brother of the 
secretary of Charles V, the Venetian Caspar Contarini, Reginald 
Pole, kinsman of Henry VIII, who had seen England slip away 
from Rome, had, upon their own initiative, endeavored to find 
some basis of reconciliation for Christian Europe. They con- 
demned the sale of indulgences, and admitted the doctrine of 
justification by faith. They had back of them, even in Italy, 
a large following. Some noble women, like Renée of Ferrara, 
and Vittoria Colonna, longed ardently for the end of the schism. 
Paul HI at first took up these ideas; Pole and Contarini be- 
came cardinals, and it was even asserted that Erasmus, who 
died in 1536, was upon the point of receiving the red hat. Con- 
tarini obtained the promise of a meeting of a Church Council, 
to which Protestants should be admitted. In 1541, at Ratisbon, 
he met Melanchthon for the purpose of taking up in advance those 
questions upon which the discussion would bear; but at the last 
minute, Luther and the pope each feared to offend the irreconcil- 
able elements in their factions, and drew back. Paul HI renounced 



THE JESUITS 333 

every concession at the next Council, whose meeting place he had 
fixed at Trent, close to Germany and to Italy. 

39. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556).— Luther himself had ad- 
vanced too far to consider a reconciliation. On the other hand, 
there was a powerful party which was favorable to a rigid refor- 
mation of education and morals within the Catholic world, but 
which refused to have any dealings with heresy, and which wished 
to reorganize the Papacy and Catholicism in order to combat the 
Protestant movement with the greatest possible energy. A young 
Spanish nobleman, Ignatius Loyola, who was born in 1491, 
was the creator of a religious organization which permitted the 
popes of the XVI century to check the progress of the Refor- 
mation, of which up to this time they had been powerless spec- 
tators. 

Full of knightly and Christian enthusiasm, having a vivid imagi- 
nation, and a passionate exaltation, Lojola subordinated every- 
thing to his belief. Wounded at the siege of Pamplona, in 1521, 
he experienced, during his sickness, an awakening to a religious 
life. At heart a soldier, a man of action, and an ardent mystic, 
he conceived the world as a battlefield, where the soldiers of God, 
and those of the devil, gave themselves up to incessant combat, 
and he believed that he was railed upon to form a spiritual militia, 
which, by its banner, its motto ad majorem Dei gloriam, and its 
propaganda, should struggle unquestioningly in order to give to 
the Papacy victory over heresy. 

40. The Jesuits. — He then subjected himself to a discipline 
for holiness which he pursued with an invincible determination ; 
he practised the most severe austerities and the most revolting acts 
of charity. Over thirty years of age, he took up his education and 
became a student at the University of Paris. There he met 
Francis Xavier, also a Spaniard, mild and gentle in disposition, 
who allowed himself to be ruled by the ardent convictions of his 
friend. There, too, he met Lainez, who shared his ideas upon 
the defense of Catholicism, and advanced his views with perhaps 
even more intolerance and vehemence. They together formed the 
militia, " the Society," and not the Order of Jesus. They were 
first called Jesuits probably by Calvin in 1550. By their blind 
obedience to the vicar of Christ, the pope, the Jesuits recall the 
Mendicant Orders of the XIII century, but they lived much 



334 THE CATHOLIC COUNTER REFORMATION 

more in the world than the earlier Order had done. They also 
eagerly sought to control the education of the middle and noble 
classes in order to inspire in the rising generations a scorn for the 
ideas upon which the Reformation rested. They preached inert, 
passive obedience to the papal authority, whose infallibility they 
proclaimed; and their aim was to become the masters of the 
Papacy in order to constrain it to reformation, by making use of 
them as humble instruments. As a matter of fact, they succeeded 
in imposing upon the Council of Trent, and upon the entire 
Catholic Church, the ideas and virtues which for five hundred 
years have given force to the Spanish church. The threat- 
ened Catholics rallied round the new Society, which showed 
the way to victory by means of discipline, and before the 
death of Loyola (1556) there were already nearly a hundred 
Jesuit colleges in Europe. The new General, Lainez, organized 
the Society into provinces, and the founding of the University of 
Ingolstadt, in the face of Lutheran opposition, showed that the new 
militia was determined to carry war into the heart of the enemies' 
country. Not alone in Europe, however, and among peoples al- 
ready Christian did the Jesuits labor. The world was their field. 
In India, Japan, China, Brazil, Paraguay, and among the savage 
Indians of North America they strove to convert to Catholic 
Christianity the nations as yet outside Christendom. No brighter 
page appears in the annals of the Christian faith than the heroic 
lives of these Jesuit missionaries, who bravely faced torture and 
death in the name of their religion. In 1540, a papal bull con- 
secrated the establishment of the Society, and Paul III followed its 
inspiration at the Council of Trent. 

4L The Council of Trent. — Promised since 1540, the Coun- 
cil did not assemble until 1545. The faction of those who desired 
conciliation and of its opponents, who counted upon the support of 
the Jesuits, were about equal in force. It seemed almost for a 
time as if a second schism was preparing, so violent were the 
discussions; but the party which was committed to the doctrine of 
papal infallibility in the end prevailed, and the Catholic dogma 
was fixed in such manner as to make any conciliation with the 
Protestants impossible. All the doctrines of the Church upon the 
sacraments, the Eucharist, the adoration of the Saints and of the 
Virgin, and indulgences were retained intact; nor was any change 



THE LAST POPES OF THE XVI CENTURY 335 

made in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in the celibacy of the clergy, 
in the ceremonials of worship, or in the organization of the re- 
ligious orders. On the other hand, it brought to an end many of 
the abuses which were desolating the Church; the excesses of the 
financial system of the Papacy, and the frequent exercise of ex- 
communication. Discipline was reformed. The age for a candi- 
date to the episcopacy was fixed at thirty years, for the priesthood, 
at twenty-five, and for vows, at sixteen. The creation of seminaries 
for the instruction of the clergy was recommended, and the sacra- 
ment of marriage was surrounded with precautions hitherto 
neglected. 

That part of the work of the Council of Trent was satisfactory, 
and at the end of half a century the Catholic clergy, by the dig- 
nity of their lives and by their learning, had regained the authority 
which had been so compromised at the beginning of the XVI 
century; but this was not attained without difficulty. Assembled 
in 1545, transferred to Bologna in 1547, then suspended; re- 
established at Trent in 1551 by Julius III, then dispersed in 1552 
by the aggression of Maurice of Saxony, summoned anew by Pius 
IV in 1562, the Council did not finish its work until 1563. It 
had been abandoned by those who, like the cardinal of Lorraine and 
the agents of Charles V, had wished to put an end to the schism 
by concessions; but when it had affirmed the superiority of the 
pope to the Councils, the rights of ecclesiastical justice, the privi- 
lege of the tribunals of the Inquisition, the authority of the popes 
over the bishops, certain countries, like France, refused to recog- 
nize the validity of the decrees of the Council. If the Empire, on 
the one hand, by the peace of Augsburg, had entered upon the road 
to toleration, the Papacy, the Spaniards, and the Jesuits, had a 
truer idea of the necessities of the situation. The Catholic Church, 
in order to survive, had to preserve the principle of authority at 
the expense of unity. It owed to the Council of Trent its power 
in the XVII century, and it has remained since then immovable 
upon the principles laid down at that time. 

42. The Last Popes of the XVI Century. — The popes who 
were the contemporaries of the Council of Trent, or who fol- 
lowed it, persevered in their plans for the triumph of the ideas 
which had ruled there. Paul III, although at first interested in 
securing for his son Piero, Parma and Piacenza, and later in 



336 THE CATHOLIC COUNTER REFORMATION 

opposing the stubborn ambition of his grandson, Ottavio, was in 
favor of the creation of the Society of Jesus. Julius III reopened 
the Council which had been suspended by Paul III. Paul IV, 
Caraffa, reorganized the Inquisition, which he took away from 
the Dominicans in order to establish it at Rome, and joined to 
it the formidable Congregation of the Index, which was de- 
signed to denounce and to interdict all books whose doctrine was 
contrary to the orthodox teaching of the Church; but political 
intrigue, and the avarice of his nephews, especially of the most 
celebrated of them. Cardinal Carlo Caraffa, compromised his 
position in the Catholic world. Pius IV brought the Council of 
Trent to a close with its reforms. His successor, Pius V, who 
pushed religious austerity almost to asceticism, supported the Catho- 
lic party throughout Europe, stirring up the lukewarm and the in- 
different. Pie did not see the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's 
day, but his successor, Gregory XIII, returned public thanks upon 
learning of the massacre of the Huguenots in France. Celebrated 
for having reformed the Julian calendar, and with the help of an 
Italian physician and astronomer, Lilio, for striking ten days from 
the year 1582, he gave to the calendar the form in use today 
throughout Christendom, with the exception of Russia and Greece. 
He governed the pontifical states without any manifestation of 
force, and left a rough task to his successor, Sixtus V. Unyield- 
ing in his struggle against the Protestants, against Elizabeth, and 
against Henry IV, Sixtus V was, nevertheless, not so much occu- 
pied with the Reformation as were his predecessors. In the five 
years of his pontificate, he was obliged to restore order to the 
States of the Church by exterminating brigandage, and by re- 
organizing the finances. His third successor, Clement VIII, 
showed himself less belligerent. He secured, it is true, the publi- 
cation of the famous bull, In Coena Domini, begun under Paul 
III. This is a resume of all the anathemas hurled against the 
heresiarchs and the sceptics; but he admitted Henry IV into the 
Church, contributed his share to the peace of Vervins, and 
dreamed of uniting the Christian world against the Turks. Sur- 
rounded by learned doctors whose science had been inspired by the 
Council of Trent, Baronius, Bellarmino, and du Perron, he was 
chiefly concerned with preserving the Church from new heresies 
to which the question of grace had given rise, and at the moment 



THE RESULTS OF THE REFORMATION 337 

when the lay champion of militant Catholicism, King Philip H of 
Spain died (1598), he seemed to be discouraged from continuing 
the struggle against the Reformation. 

43. The Results of the Reformation. — At the end of the 
XVI century the religious division of Europe had become definite. 
The Protestant schism had led to profound results. It had, indeed, 
piled up ruin around it; in Germany, it had, to a certain extent, 
checked the Renaissance movement, undermined the prosperity of 
the cities, and favored the despotism of the princes; in France, it 
had well-nigh delivered the realm over as a prey to the Spaniards 
and the English; but it had also given rise to a salutary moral 
reaction against the vices which had invaded the Church, and 
against the pagan tendencies which the Renaissance favored. The 
Catholic Church felt the force of the counter influence of this 
movement in the awakened conscience of its communicants. On 
the other hand. Protestantism has almost always been allied with 
humanism; it has introduced reforms in education, and it has 
been, for the most part, favorable to free expression of opinion, 
and to the development of the spirit of criticism. It precipitated 
the movement which led to the secularization of society, and 
hastened the downfall of many of the institutions of the Middle 
Ages. In England, in the Scandinavian countries, and in Hol- 
land it strengthened the development of nationality, and was 
identified there with patriotism. Unfortunately, it divided 
Europe into two camps, and prepared for it, from the latter part 
of the XVI century to the first half of the XVII century, the 
bloody religious wars which followed in its wake. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY.— CHARLES 

V IN SPAIN.— PHILIP IL— THE LOW 

COUNTRIES.— 1500-1598 

1. Charles V in Spain. — Spain played a preponderant part 
in Europe in the XVI century, partly by reason of the successes 
of Charles I, who was Charles V of Germany, and partly by reason 
of the ambitions of Philip II. Charles of Austria, son of Philip 
the Handsome and Joanna the Mad, was a grandson of both 
Maximilian of Germany and of Ferdinand of Spain. A pupil 
of Adrian of Utrecht, the most rigid of masters, and of a Wal- 
loon nobleman, who was practised in intrigue, William of 
Croy, he was nevertheless trained in diplomacy chiefly by his 
aunt, Margaret of Austria. He spoke French most of the time, 
and when, in 15 16, he came to Spain to succeed his grandfather, 
he was received there as a foreigner. His mother, whom he 
was obliged to place in confinement on account of the deranged 
condition of her mind, was still very popular; and, undoubtedly, 
without the intervention of Cardinal Ximenes, the young king 
would have experienced great difliculty in gaining recognition. 
In spite of this service, however, he supplanted the illustrious old 
man, so far as it was possible, by his Flemish favorites. 

The Cortes of Valladolid voiced the popular discontent by in- 
sisting upon an observance of the rights of the unfortunate Queen 
Joanna, while the Cortes of Saragossa showed themselves even 
more disaffected. Thus, when Charles was making plans in 1520, 
to set out for the purpose of regulating affairs in Germany, revolt 
was simmering in Aragon and in Catalonia, and even in Castile. 

2. The Revolt of the Towns. — An extraordinary demand for 
money made upon the Cortes, who were summoned, contrary to 
precedent, in Galatia, instead of in Castile, caused the discontent 
to break forth. Fifteen towns formed the Holy Junta of Avila, 

338 



THE OFFICIALS OF CHARLES V 339 

protested against the regency granted to Adrian of Utrecht, and 
raised troops whose captain-general was a nobleman of Toledo, 
famous for his bravery, John de Padilla. The rebels at length 
gained possession of the person of Queen Joanna at Tordesillas, and 
recognized her authority, an action which made of Charles a 
usurper; but the upper-class hidalgos and the middle classes of the 
towns understood each other but indifferently, the leaders quar- 
relled, and as a result they were defeated. Padilla and the ring- 
leaders of the rebellion were beheaded, and all the towns made 
submission excepting Toledo, where the widow of Padilla held 
out until she obtained a satisfactory capitulation for her followers, 
and liberty herself to withdraw into Portugal. 

Charles V, having gained wisdom by experience, granted a gen- 
eral pardon to the insurgents. Thus, after a sudden uprising which 
was suppressed in 1524, in the south of the kingdom of Valencia, 
the municipal and feudal opposition rapidly disappeared in Spain. 

3. The Officials of Charles V in Spain and in Flanders. — 
The magnificent struggle which the emperor carried on against 
the national enemy, the king of France, his wars against the Turks, 
Solyman the Magnificent, and the Mussulman corsairs of the 
Mediterranean, which was pleasing to the profoundly Christian 
feeling of the Spaniards, and the rôle which he assumed as the 
champion of Catholicism against the Reformation, quickly wiped 
out the unpleasant memories of the opening years of his reign, 
and in spite of the impoverishment of Spain and the increased 
burden of taxation, he was able, without difficulty, by 1538, to 
dispense with the convocation of the Cortes altogether. More 
than this, as far as it was possible, he made concessions to the 
pride of the Castilians and granted privileges to the Aragonese. 
In Spain he employed Spaniards, chiefly of the great families, as 
for example, the famous duke of Alva, who succeeded in imparting 
to him his own hatred of the Reformation. 

The administration of the Estates of Flanders and his general 
foreign policy the emperor intrusted to the Italian Gattinara, who 
was Chancellor from 15 18 to 1531, and, although he reorganized 
the Inquisition in the Low Countries and watched very narrowly 
the Flemish tradespeople through the Great Council of Malines, 
the Chancellor avoided everything which might provoke the masses, 
so turbulent in Brabant and in Flanders. The two Granvellas, 



340 THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 

who were appointed later, were less prudent, and, althougli they 
handled their compatriots of Franche-Comté verj^ skilfully, they 
nevertheless attacked the privileges of the people of Ghent, who 
were provoked to insurrection. The danger was threatening 
enough to com.pel Charles V to cross France in 1540 in order to 
put down the rebellion, which he repressed harshly, although it 
was the town of his birth and a locality in which his name re- 
mained relatively popular. 

4. The Abdication and Death of Charles V. — Inasmuch as 
the great part which Charles V had taken in European affairs out- 
side of Spain is elsewhere dealt with, his closing years in Spain 
need only be touched upon briefly. 

It was after the victory of Miihlberg, and after the disillusion- 
ment which his efforts to bring about a compromise in the religious 
war in Germany and the chagrin which the loss of the three bish- 
oprics, Metz, Toul, and Verdun (1552), had brought him that 
Charles V, chronically ill with the gout, and worn out with 
the cares of State and the adventures of a life exceptionally full 
of incidents, made his plans to surrender his power. In 1555 he 
formally abdicated the throne in the Low Countries in favor 
of his son Philip, whom he recognized three months later as King 
of Spain. Already, in spite of his desire to preserve the unity 
of the domains of the house of Austria, he had been compelled to 
cede the Empire and the German hereditary lands of the Haps- 
burgs to his brother, Ferdinand. 

He landed quietly in Spain the next year in the month of 
September. Nevertheless he was very much annoyed at being 
taken at his word by Philip II, who prepared for him a very modest 
reception, as for a man detached from the affairs of the world. 
In February, 1557, he entered his last retreat. Yet to Philip 
II, and even to Ferdinand, he still remained the Emperor, the 
Counselor, to be addressed with deference, the great man of the 
family. Like nearly all the sovereigns of his time, he indulged him- 
self in luxury and pleasure, and he did not in the monastery live 
as a monk, but as a prince. Always a fervent Catholic, but at the 
beginning of his reign somewhat favorable to conciliation, he 
evinced in his last years an exalted piety, and in this spiritual con- 
dition he died September 21st, 1558, assured of having done his 
duty in combating the Reformation. 



THE REFORMATION IN SPAIN 341 

5. Succession of Philip II. — Philip II, son of Charles V, re- 
mained popular in Spain because he was the incarnation of the 
proud, dominating, serious, and impassioned genius of his people. 
He consecrated his life to Spain's greatness, but lie roused violent 
hatred in the rest of Europe, inasmuch as he constantly struggled 
to bend the whole of Europe to the interests of Spain and of 
Catholicism. For posterity he remains the personification of the 
spirit of persecution and absolutism. To his contemporaries he 
seemed sent upon the earth that he might bring about the triumph 
of the decrees of the Council of Trent. 

Not content with governing Spain and the colonies as a sus- 
picious despot, and with annexing Portugal, he wished to conquer 
France, to overthrow England, and to extend his influence to 
Denmark and Sweden. In this impossible task he persisted, and 
hurled him.self blindly against obstacles whose power he was un- 
able to measure; he lost the Low Countries, and finallv, together 
with Spain, wore himself out in his effort to crush the spirit of 
nationality, to stifle the spread of liberal ideas, and to coun- 
teract everything which was the peculiar work of the XVI cen- 
tury. 

6. The Reformation in Spain. — It was after the treaty of 
Cateau-Cambrésis that Philip II, the king of Spain, residing from 
now on in Madrid, which had become the Spanish capital in 1501, 
gave himself up with iron determination to the execution of his 
plans. A tireless worker, he yielded but little to the influence of 
his counselors, even to those who appeared to be deepest in his con- 
fidence : his natural sister, Margaret of Parma, Granvella, the duke 
of Alva, and his secretarj^, Antonio Perez. He always reserved to 
himself the final decision of matters, even at a distance, without 
taking into account the possible errors which this remoteness would 
inevitably introduce. 

In order to isolate himself still more, and to accomplish the vow 
which he had made upon the day of the battle of Saint-Quentin, he 
began the Escorial Palace, which was built in the shape of a 
gridiron in memory of Saint Lawrence, upon whose day the battle 
was fought. Here, in the midst of a desolate solitude, whose 
daily aspect depressed a mind already prone to melancholy, he 
passed his daj-'S. Engrossed with these meditations, he confined 
himself more and more to his intention of fighting against the 



342 THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 

efforts to secure religious independence which were multiplying in 
Europe, and even in Spain. 

Although we know but indifferently the history of the Reforma- 
tion in the Peninsula, it is nevertheless certain that some of the 
advanced ideas had penetrated there, arousing in the converted 
Moors, or the Jews, recollections of their ancient beliefs. Chiefly 
where the non-Catholic element appeared, Philip H did not hesitate 
to favor the Inquisition with inexorable firmness, and even before 
his return to Madrid in 1559, the autos da fé began. The inquisi- 
tor, Valdez, had obtained from the pope a bull which gave to the 
Holy Office authority to punish the errors of Luther with fire, even 
in the case of reclaimed heretics, whose conversion might be the ob- 
ject of suspicion. The only advantage which their affirmation, in 
extremis, of the Catholic faith secured was the privilege of being 
strangled before being placed on the scaffold. The princes and the 
court assisted at these executions, and the king hastened his return 
to Spain in order that he might be present at the auto da fê of the 
8th of October, 1559. His third wife, Elizabeth of France, the 
daughter of Henry II, was later obliged to witness these spectacles 
staged in honor of her recent marriage with Philip, which, al- 
though she shared the intolerance of her husband, filled her with 
horror. 

7. Don Carlos, the Mad Prince. — The part taken by the 
Inquisition in the government of Spain and the rôle played by 
the Inquisitor Espinosa in the history of the eldest son of the 
king, Don Carlos, has for a long time led to the belief that the 
king had his son assassinated for political causes, or perhaps for 
religious reasons ; but today the paternal affection which he showed 
to his daughters is well known, and his cruelty recoiled before the 
actual murder of his son. 

From childhood, Don Carlos, whose mother was Donna Maria 
of Portugal, cousin-germaine to Philip II, had shown signs of 
feeble-mindedness, like a great many of the Spanish princes after 
him. This fact furnished one of the reasons why the king mar- 
ried Elizabeth of France. As to the young queen, who had 
always great confidence in the king, she never showed Don 
Carlos anything but pity. Philip II had formally proclaimed his 
son Prince of Asturias (1560) ; but in 1562, in consequence of an 
accident, Don Carlos ceased to be mentally responsible, and in- 



THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO 343 

triguers after this sought to make use of him. He was com- 
promised in the first uprisings of the Flemish, and, because of an 
outburst of fury, was imprisoned (1568). He died six months 
later quite mad. Today history does not attribute his death to 
Philip II, inasmuch as the accusation comes from sources which 
are more than suspected, Antonio Perez, Catharine de' Medici, and 
the English Ambassadors, that is to say, from the enemies of the 
king of Spain. Probably, also, Philip II was not the murderer 
of his natural brother, Don Juan of Austria, who died prema- 
turely in 1578. 

8. Don Juan of Austria (1547-1578).— Born out of wed- 
lock in 1547 o^ a Bavarian mother, Barbara Blomberg, and Charles 
V, a prince haughty, violent, and possessed of mediocre ability 
only, Don Juan of Austria owes a great deal of his fame to tradi- 
tion. His first military achievements were won against the 
Moriscos, the descendants of the Moors of Alpuj arras. These 
Moriscos, or "new Christians," remained attached to their own 
language, their distinctive dress, and their native customs. The 
historian, Oviedo, indeed, denounced their custom of frequenting 
the baths as unworthy of Spaniards and Christians. The monks, 
too, preached a crusade against these converts, whom they accused 
of secretly persisting in their original religious ideas. 

Ordered peremptorily to relinquish these ties with the past, the 
Moors rose in rebellion. Mohammed Abu Omeya, a descendant 
of the kings of Granada, gave up his Spanish name of Fernando 
of Valois, and, for two years (1568-1570), successfully resisted 
the efforts of Don Juan of Austria. Nevertheless, in the end he 
had to yield. A great number of Moorish prisoners were sold as 
slaves, others were either despoiled,^ or transported to Castile ; 
and the richest province in Spain, Andulusia, was soon reduced 
to a desert. 

9. The Battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571).— The Alpu- 
jarras war made a Christian hero of the half-brother of Philip 
II. The following year, when the Venetians had succeeded 
in obtaining from Spain, the pope, and the Christians of Malta, 
their aid in the re-conquest of Cj^press, which the sultan, Selim 
II, had just taken from them, Don Juan of Austria received the 
chief command of the Catholic fleet. 

The Christians lay in wait for the Turks at the mouth of the 



344 THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 

Gulf of Lepanto, off the coast of Greece, and attacked them near 
the islands of Curzolari. The sudden assault of Don Juan dis- 
concerted the leader of the Turks, who was killed at the opening 
of the conflict. In three hours the Ottoman fleet was scattered, 
and three hundred thousand prisoners were taken by the con- 
querors October 7th, 157 1. 

10. Exile of Antonio Perez. — Philip II continued to hesitate 
between jealousy and confidence in regard to the victor of Lepanto. 
In 1575, after the death of the prince of Eboli, the king had taken 
as his favorite his secretary, Antonio Perez, to whom the widow 
of Eboli, Anne of Mendoza, who was no longer young and who 
had but one eye, was bound by relations which were presumably 
rather political than sentimental. They succeeded in bringing 
under suspicion the agent of Don Juan of Austria, Escovedo, 
whom they even had assassinated at Philip's order. The death of 
Don Juan in the same year (1578) seemed to assure the influence 
of the court clique, when another servitor of Philip II, Mateo 
Vasquez, denounced the intrigue. 

After a long trial (1578-1583) the princess of Eboli was 
incarcerated until the time of her death. Perez, twice imprisoned, 
escaped at first to Saragossa and then to France, where, under the 
protection of Henry IV, he composed his Memoirs, in which he 
attributes his disgrace to his rivalry for the king's favor with 
Anne of Mendoza. Philip profited by this occasion to have done 
for once and all with the jueros, or local customs, of Aragon. 
The province submitted to military occupation, and the Cortes of 
Tarragona were forced to renounce their ancient privileges. 

11. Philip II and the Succession in Portugal (1581). — 
At the same time that he was engaged in this struggle against 
Antonio Perez, Philip II made himself master of Portugal, and 
brought the whole of the Peninsula under his authority. The last 
king of the house of Avis, Sebastian, had disappeared in an expedi- 
tion to Morocco, and his successor, the " priest king," Cardinal 
Don Henry, died in 1580. In consequence of his death the Cortes 
of Coimbra, after hesitating between Philip II, the son and husband 
of a Portuguese princess; Catharine of Avis, married to the duke 
of Braganza; and another member of the royal family, the prior, 
Antonio de Crato, finally fixed upon the latter as king. 

The king of Spain then intrusted an army to the command of the 



RELIGIOUS QUESTION IN NETHERLANDS 345 

duke of Alva, who had been restored to favor ; the Antonins were 
beaten at Alcantara; the duchess of Braganza sold her claims, and 
the Cortes of Tomar acknowledged the rule of Philip II, who 
promised to respect the autonomy of Portugal, and to reside often 
in Lisbon; but he could not understand the necessity for assuring 
at any price a union of the Iberian Peninsula. He left for his 
own country in 1583, and gave the government over to his greedy 
and overbearing agents, who exasperated the Portuguese. 

12. Philip II the Representative of Catholicism in Europe. 
— The maintenance of his authority in Spain, Italy, the Low 
Countries, and America, was not enough to satisfy the ambition 
of Philip II; he aimed at nothing less than the domination of 
Europe. In 1562 with the Guises, in 1565 at the interview at 
Bayonne, and in 1585 at the treaty of Joinville, signed with Henry 
of Guise, he insisted upon assuming the direction of the French 
Catholic party, while from 1589 to 1592 his ambassador, the duke 
of Feria, and the greatest of his generals, Alexander Farnese, 
were employed in preparing the way to the French throne for 
his daughter, Isabella Clara Eugenia. But it was a task beyond 
the strength of Spain, and Philip was definitely compelled to aban- 
don it at the peace of Vervins in 1598. He was not any more 
fortunate in England. Here his diplomacy ended in the defeat of 
the Armada. This dissipation of his military and political forces 
produced a result which was even more serious: the dismember- 
ment of the Spanish Netherlands. 

13. Spanish Government and the Religious Question in 
the Netherlands. — The Spanish Netherlands consisted of seven- 
teen provinces, declared indivisible by a Pragmatic Sanction of 
1549. In the north there were the provinces which spoke Dutch; 
the duchy of Guelders, the counties of Holland, Zealand, Zut- 
phen, the lordships of Friesland, Groningen, Utrecht, and Over- 
Yssel. To the south, the French Walloons and the Flemish in- 
habited the duchies of Brabant, Luxemburg, the counties of 
Flanders, Hainaut, Artois, and the lordship of Malines. Charles 
V intrusted the government of these provinces to the Grand Coun- 
cil of Malines and to his aunt, Margaret, then to his sister, Mary 
of Hungary. Finally, after Philibert Emmanuel of Savoy, Philip 
II intrusted the regency to a natural daughter of the emperor, 
Margaret of Parma. 



346 THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 

In the midst of the XVI century, Antwerp attracted to its port 
annually twenty-five hundred vessels, and the taxes raised there 
amounted in thirty years to two hundred and sixty million guilders; 
thus, Charles V controlled to a certain extent the interests of the 
merchants and the prosperity of the nobility of the Low Countries. 

Unfortunately, religious quarrels were being waged in Flan- 
ders, and specially in Holland. Mary of Hungary attempted to 
restrain the propaganda of the Reformation, and the emperor 
Charles had created an ecclesiastical tribunal, directed by two 
inquisitors of the faith, chosen, it is true, among the Flemish 
priests, but who pronounced between 1522 and 1555 no less than 
fifty thousand sentences. Philip II, born in Spain, had little 
sympathy with his subjects in the Netherlands. Once the treaty 
of Cateau-Cambresis was signed, he hoped to be able to put an 
end to heresy. Nevertheless, before leaving, he placed in the 
Grand Council, which was associated with his sister, a majority 
of Flemish and Dutch noblemen. 

Among them were Lamoral, Count of Egmont, a man of chiv- 
alrous disposition who had rendered great services to the king of 
Spain, and who believed in the right of free speech; the count of 
Horn, a Montmorency, placing his reliance upon the vast wealth of 
his house ; and William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, who, having 
become by his marriage the possessor of the county of Buren, in 
the Low Countries, was also a man of great ambition, determina- 
tion, and energy. Faithful servitor to Charles V, but secretly in- 
clined to Calvinism, his prudence has given to him the somewhat 
exaggerated name of " The Silent." But the influence of these 
leaders of the Flemish nobility was annulled by a secret consulta 
composed of three members devoted to the religious policy of 
Philip II : the Cardinal Granvella, Baron Berlaymont, and Viglius 
of Aytta, the monk. In order to remove the Belgian and Dutch 
churches from the authorit}^ of their French and German metro- 
politans, the king created the three archbishoprics of Cambrai, 
Utrecht, and Malines, and Granvella was made Primate of 
Malines, with the mission of introducing a genuinely Spanish 
Inquisition into the Low Countries. 

14. The "Compromise of the Nobles" (1566).— In five 
years Granvella, through his severity, had aroused every one 
against his rule. Margaret, the regent, annoyed by the lofty 



DUKE OF ALVA AND COUNCIL OF BLOOD 347 

superiority of the cardinal, succeeded in obtaining his recall in 
1564. Nevertheless, in spite of a journey of Egmont to Spain, to 
urge moderation upon the king, Philip signed in the wood of 
Segovia the famous despatch of October 17th, 1565, which in- 
sisted upon the extirpation of heresy. Three hundred nobles then 
assembled, first at Hoogstraten, then at Breda. Their delibera- 
tions were guided by the leaders of the Protestant part}^, Henry 
of Brederode, Louis of Nassau, brother of the prince of Orange, 
and a Calvinistic lord of Brussels, Philip Marnix of Saint Alde- 
gonde, who ardently served the cause of the Reformation in the 
Low Countries with his pen and with his sword. Marnix drew up 
and presented to the regent April 5th, 1566, a petition which is 
known under the name of the Compromise of the Nobles. 

15. " The Beggars." — This Compromise vigorously de- 
manded the removal of foreign troops, and the suppression of the 
Inquisition. The duchess of Parma did not give the petitioners 
an unfavorable audience, but it is uncertain whether the expression 
which Berlaymont, who was present at the interview, is credited 
with: " Madam, they are nothing but a pack of beggars," was the 
origin of the name " beggars," although it was early applied to 
them. Philip II, at least, repudiated the pacific intentions of his 
sister, an action which precipitated a fearful uprising. 

The Confederation of Saint-Trond was organized by William of 
Orange for the purpose of opposing the introduction of new 
Spanish forces. The Calvinistic refugees from France came over 
the border, and the radical element among the Protestants took 
possession of Valenciennes and Cambrai, and sacked a great num- 
ber of churches, among which was the beautiful cathedral at 
Antwerp. For this reason they were called the *' iconoclasts." 
This was the beginning of the Beggars' War; and the Beggars of 
the Sea, the Beggars on Land, and the Beggars in the Wood, with 
their symbolical porringers and their wallets, formed the vanguard 
of the armies which were later to emancipate the Dutch prov- 
inces. 

16. The Duke of Alva and the Council of Blood. — For an 
instant, Philip II was inclined to negotiate, but when William, 
Louis of Nassau, and Brederode learned that the duke of Alva 
had been appointed to reduce the Low Countries with an army, 
*' they smelled the fricassée from afar," according to the expression 



348 THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 

of Brantôme, and left the country. Horn and Egmont, who had 
refused to sign the Compromise, and were opposed to the fury of 
the " iconoclasts," did not wish to expatriate themselves, and so 
expose their goods to confiscation. " Farewell, prince without 
lands," said Egmont to the prince of Orange. " Farewell, count 
without a head," responded William. The approach of the duke 
of Alva precipitated the flight of one hundred thousand persons, 
and Margaret of Parma, whether for the sake of her dignity, or 
because she did not wish her name to be used as a cover for the 
violences which the well-known character of the Spanish general 
was sure to bring about, resigned her duties July, 1567. 

In order to ferret out not only the Beggars, but all Calvinist 
preachers, all members of Calvinist consistories, all who had de- 
troyed Catholic or who had built Protestant churches, and all 
who had signed the Compromise, the new governor at once organ- 
ized the famous Council of Trouble, the " Council of Blood," as it 
was almost immediately called, under the direction of his pitiless 
agents, John of Vargas and Del Rio. There were almost fifty 
thousand victims of this tribunal, of whom at least twenty 
thousand perished at the stake, or upon the scaffold. Horn and 
Egmont were arrested in the midst of a celebration which the 
duke had made for them. Imprisoned in the Citadel of Ghent, 
they appeared later before the Council of Blood in spite of the 
privilege which they were assured as members of the Order of the 
Golden Fleece of being tried by the Council of that Order. It 
was in vain that they proved their orthodox Catholicism, and 
that they had taken no part in the rebellion. They were con- 
demned to death, and executed in the great square of Brussels 
in 1568. 

17. The War Against Spain from 1568 to 1573.— Louis of 
Nassau with some German troops now invaded the province of 
Groningen. Alva defeated him at Jemigen, near Ems, and forced 
him to withdraw, as well as William, who had by now declared 
himself a Protestant. The conqueror made a triumphal entry into 
Brussels, and had erected in the great square of Antwerp, ex aere 
captivo, a monument of bronze, taken from the insurgents, in 
which he was represented as trampling the people and the nobility 
under his feet. He had boasted that he would draw from the 
Low Countries as much gold and silver as came from Peru, and 



THE PACIFICATION OF GHENT 349 

introduced the old Spanish tax of the alcavala, a tenth part of 
the proceeds of every sale, more than a hundredth part of the 
value of all property, and a twentieth on all transfers. 

The Reformation party appeared to be discouraged, since from 
1568 to 1570 the prince of Orange v^^as serving with the French 
Huguenots, under Coligny; but in 1572 a descent of the Beggars 
of the Sea upon the island of Voorne roused to successful insur- 
rection the fortified town of Brielle, and Zealand declared out- 
right for the Reformation. At the Assembly of Dordrecht, Philip of 
Marnix had William declared Stadtholder for Friesland, Utrecht, 
Holland, and Zealand. The prince of Orange then made an 
attack upon Brussels, while his brother took possession of Mons, 
but the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's day (1572) took from 
them the support of Coligny, and the duke of Alva gave Malines 
over to such horrible pillage, that Philip II, himself, frightened 
by the number of his victims, finally recalled the duke in 1573. 

18. The Pacification of Ghent (1576). — After the short 
government of the duke of Medina-Coeli, the commander of Cas- 
tile, Louis of Requesens, was sent to the Low Countries. He 
allowed the Beggars of the Sea to take possession of Middleburg, 
the capital of Zealand, while he conquered the two brothers of 
the Stadtholder, Louis and Henry, who were killed ; but Leyden 
made a successful resistance, and in commemoration of their brave 
defense a Dutch Protestant University was presented to the city 
in 1575, by William the Silent. Requesens died in 1576 at the 
blockade of Zericksee. 

The Catholic nobles then tried to put an end to the war by dis- 
banding the Spanish troops. As a result these bands treated like 
captured cities the towns that wished to carry out the plan. 
Antwerp w^as given over to "the Spanish Fury" for three days; 
seven thousand persons were massacred ; the churches and the 
houses of rich merchants were sacked, and the Hôtel de Ville, 
together with five hundred houses, was burned. Indignation was 
as deeply felt among the Catholics as among the Protestants, and 
delegates from seventeen provinces thereupon drew up a constitu- 
tion of twenty-four articles, called the Pacification of Ghent, No-, 
vember 8th, 1576. By its provisions the Low Countries hoped to 
form an autonomous federation in which liberty of conscience 
should be recognized. 



350 THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 

19. Don Juan of Austria in the Low Countries (1577- 
1578). — In 1577 Philip II sent Don Juan of Austria to succeed 
Requesens. At first he seemed willing to accept the Pacification 
of Ghent, but he soon perceived the hostile attitude of the Catholic 
chiefs toward William of Orange, and at the moment when 
William, whom the Estates had designated as governor of Bra- 
bant and Flanders, was about to enter Brussels, Don Juan re- 
fused to recognize his nomination, left the city, and withdrew to 
Namur. He counted in this way upon drawing to himself all the 
enemies of the Reformation, but nothing came of it. Instead, 
the Catholics and Protestants of Belgium agreed to accept the 
authority of an Austrian prince, the Archduke Mathias, brother 
of the emperor, Rudolph II. Don Juan, it is true, defeated the 
army of the Low Countries at Gembloux; but inasmuch as he 
was unable to enter Brussels, at the time of his death (1578) 
he was in practically the same unsatisfactory military position as 
his predecessor had been. 

20. The Political Union of Utrecht (1579).— The death 
of Don Juan of Austria did not have the fatal results for the 
Spanish cause which the reputation of Philip IFs brother seemed to 
warrant. For, in the same year, the Catholic nobles of Brabant, 
Hainaut, Artois, Namur, Limburg, and Luxemburg concluded the 
Union of Brussels, which was intended to be the means of keeping 
both the Spaniards and the Reformers at an equal distance. Con- 
scious of the significance of this move the new Spanish governor, 
the son of Margaret of Parma, Alexander Farnese, a patient 
and subtle diplomatist, and the greatest warrior of his age, 
contented himself for the time being with the occupation of 
Brabant. 

William of Orange followed a like policy, and while the 
Catholics of Artois, Hainaut, and the Walloon cities of Flanders, 
formed the Union of Arras, the Stadtholder, sacrificing the Pacifi- 
cation of Ghent, had an act of union voted at Utrecht January 
23d, 1579, which established a close alliance between Holland, 
Zealand, Gueldres, Utrecht, and Groningen. Six months later 
Over-Yssel and Friesland joined. 

By the terms of the Union of Utrecht each province preserved its 
automony, save for matters of common interest, which were to be 
submitted to the deliberations of the Assembly of the Estates 



MAURICE OF NASSAU 35 i 

General. Holland, the most powerful of the seven, continued to 
be governed by the burgher aristocracy of the towns, its Stadt- 
holder was given command of the united land and sea forces, and 
the executive power was specifically granted to him by each prov- 
ince, but under a special name in each instance. 

In spite of this precaution William did not hesitate to encroach 
upon the authority of the Estates General, which was continued 
with much the same power as it had had under the Spanish rule. 
Finally, in 1581, after a price had been set upon the head of Wil- 
liam of Orange by Philip II, the seven United Provinces formed 
themselves into a separate republic by a formal declaration of 
Independence. 

21. The Assassination of William of Orange (1584). — 
The presence of Alexander Farnese in the immediate vicinity was 
dangerous to the new confederation and when Mathias renounced 
the perilous honor of being governor of Belgium, the Stadtholder 
advanced the candidacy of Francis of Anjou, brother of Henry 
III. A sudden assault then gave to the French prince Hainaut 
and Artois, but the able manœuvers of Farnese soon checked the 
consequences of this rash attempt, and the duke of Anjou re- 
turned to France, where he died June lOth, 1584. A month 
later, July lOth, William of Orange was assassinated at Delft by 
a miserable wretch, Balthazar Gerard, who had wormed himself 
into his confidence and whose crime should be attributed as much 
to his fanatical hatred for the " unlawful tyrant," as to the 
temptation of the promised reward. 

The crime of Gerard, however, did not turn aside Farnese, who 
had provoked it, from the way which he had marked out; but 
he contented himself with retaking the fortified towns of Brabant, 
and Flanders, and re-entered Brussels. He laid special weight 
upon the siege of Antwerp (1585), which Philip Marnix defended 
for a year; but when the Spaniards blocked the course of the 
Scheldt, by means of a dam, the people of Antwerp were obliged 
to surrender. 

22. Maurice of Nassau. — By a first marriage with Anne of 
Egmont, William of Orange had two sons, the eldest, the count 
of Buren, died a prisoner of Philip II; the other, Maurice of 
Nassau, born in 1561, was then seventeen years old. By a third 
marriage (1583) William espoused the daughter of Coligny, 



352 THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 

Louise, who had seen her father and her first husband killed at 
Saint Bartholomew ; and she was the mother of Frederick Henry of 
Nassau, the third Stadtholder. 

The Estates General at first refused to grant the title of Stadt- 
holder to Maurice, preferring to solicit aid from Henry HI, who 
refused it, and then from Elizabeth. She sent over her favorite, 
Leicester, who took the title of Governor General, demanded and 
received Flushing, Ramekens, and Brielle; but his success did not 
justify these demands which were so dangerous to the independence 
of the Low Countries, and he was recalled in 1587. Maurice then 
received the dignity of Stadtholder. More ambitious and con- 
siderably more violent than his father, he was superior to him as a 
soldier, and he profited by the campaign of Farnese in France 
against Henry of Navarre (1590- 1592) to expel the last of 
the Spanish partisans from the United Provinces, and made vic- 
torious headway against Archduke Ernest of Austria. 

23. The Economic Situation in the Low Countries. — The 
Dutch merchants, sensitive for their liberties, now conceived a 
deep-seated hostility to the house of Orange. Besides this they 
were apprehensive that a prolongation of the war would compro- 
mise the economic results which had been obtained during the last 
twenty years. Amsterdam had already become a great commercial 
center by its affiliations with the Hansa and with Scandinavia, and 
the double destruction of Antwerp in 1576, and again in 1585, 
opened up before it a still greater future, while Philip II, by for- 
bidding the Dutch privateers to enter the ports of Portugal, forced 
them to seek their fortunes in the colonies. 

A first company, founded in 1596 at Amsterdam, defrayed the 
expenses of a half commercial and a half military expedition of 
Cornelius Houtman. It was well received in Java, and the Portu- 
guese, then in a decadent condition, were not able to defend their 
claims upon the islands of the Sunda. A new Grand Company of 
the Indies, organized by Barnevelt, then took possession of the Mo- 
luccas by force. It was controlled by a Supreme Council which 
nominated a governor general, and laid the foundations of that 
colonial empire of the Insulinda, which, from the beginning of the 
XVII century, made the Dutch the great importers of precious 
woods, sugar, and coffee, and made of them also the most powerful 
méchants of Europe. 



JUDGMENT UPON REIGN OF PHILIP II 353 

24. The Decadence of Spain. — On the other hand their 
great enemy, Phihp 11, had died, September 13th, 1598, bank- 
rupt, and unable to pay either the wages of his army or the 
salaries of his public officers. The galleons from Peru and the 
expulsion of the Moors had arrested labor and production. The 
population had diminished in an unexpected degree; distant wars 
had decimated the army; the military glory of the Spaniards was 
compromised, while their possessions were diminished; and in- 
dolence and abhorrence of labor had spread throughout Spain. 

25. Judgment upon the Reign of Philip II. — The fault is 
not entirely due to Philip IPs policy and to the abasement of the 
national character. As conquerors of America, the Spaniards were 
forcibly compelled to suffer first the social transformation which 
was an important result of the discovery of the New World. As 
a people of the last crusade, they were condemned by their 
patriotic traditions to defend Catholicism, and to maintain an 
impossible struggle against the new nationalities which were the 
issues of the Reformation. Spain lacked neither the men nor the 
intellectual power, but succumbed rather to the weight of Ameri- 
can gold and to religious quarrels. 

Philip II himself, besides, appears as a prodigiously active and 
industrious administrator, preoccupied with his efforts to maintain 
good order and to establish justice, a protector of the arts and of 
letters, as he was of the faith. If his religious intolerance was 
atrocious, we must recognize at the same time that the Spanish 
Catholic Church of the XVT century, which produced Saint 
Ignatius and Saint John de Dieu, furnished an example of dig- 
nity of morals, and regularity of discipline. 



CHAPTER XXII 
FRANCIS I AND HENRY II (1515-1559) 

1. Youth and Education of Francis I. — On the first day of 
January, 15 15, Louise of Savoy wrote upon her tablets: *' My 
son, my Caesar, is King! " The crown had been given to Francis 
I, head of the Valois-Angouleme line, cousin and son-in-law of 
the late king, Louis XII. 

Francis' mother, Louise of Savoy, was a daughter of Philip of 
Bresse, who later became the duke of Savoy. She had married the 
count of Angouleme, great-grandson of Charles V, whom she 
lost at the age of eighteen, and by whom she had two children. 
Marguerite of Angouleme and Francis I. She superintended their 
education with a passionate solicitude, bestowed upon them a 
warm affection, and had placed upon the door of her oratory 
this device: '' Libris et liberis." Louise, Marguerite, and Francis 
formed *' the Gracious Trinity " of which contemporaries were 
fond of writing. Louise of Savoy, while developing a superior 
mind in Marguerite, by means of consummate science, had rather 
allowed the impetuous temperament of her son to develop accord- 
ing to its inclination. He was then a young man of twenty, 
possessing a tremendous amount of animal vigor, a kingly bearing, 
fond of violent and dangerous exercises, and having a passion for 
the chase and the tournament. If he did not possess the broad in- 
formation of his sister, who knew Latin, Greek and Hebrew, he 
had, nevertheless, a wide-awake intelligence, great persuasiveness 
of speech, and a pronounced taste for the sciences, literature, and 
the arts. Lavish and ostentatious, he was the true king of the 
nobility. 

2. The Battle of Marignano (1515). — Having set in order 
the domestic affairs of the kingdom, and having been crowned at 
Rheims, the new king turned all his attention toward Italy, where 
he was planning to undertake the reconquest of Milan. Maximilian 

354 



THE BATTLE OF MARIGNANO 355 

Sforza, who possessed that city, had upon his side Leo X, Florence, 
the king of Aragon, the Emperor Maximilian, and the Swiss can- 
tons. Francis I cemented his alliance with the Venetians and the 
Genoese, renewed the treaty already concluded with Henry VIH 
of England, came to a good understanding with Archduke Charles, 
Prince of Castile, and assembled between the Saône, the Rhone, 
and the Alps the most formidable army which had been seen 
up to that time. This consisted of a mass of sixty thousand 
foot soldiers, and thirty thousand horses. Having intrusted the 
administration of the realm to Madam Louise of Savoy, his 
mother, as one who would know how to acquit herself of the 
responsibility with integrity and wisdom, the king left Lyons 
in order to find a road over the Alps. The passages of Mont- 
Cenis and of Mont-Genèvre were guarded by the Swiss of 
Maximilian, and upon the right bank of the Po, near Piacenza, 
the Spanish army of Raymond de Cordova was drawn up, 
while to the rear was the papal army, commanded by Lorenzo 
(H) de' Medici. The French army flanked the enemy by pass- 
ing over by way of the Col de l'Argentière. Guided by some 
daring chamois hunters, Pedro Navarro opened a route to the 
soldiers by blowing up the rocks, and by hoisting the cannon over 
with great difficulty, and after six days of prodigious toil the 
French spread out into the valley of the Po. When the general of 
the opposed forces, Prospero Colonna, learned of their arrival he 
exclaimed: "Have they flown over the mountains?" An hour 
later Bayard and Palice surprised him at table. The enemy had 
been cut in two, and the Swiss drew off toward Milan. Francis 
I began negotiations with them, and these were upon the point of 
being concluded, when the Cardinal of Sion, Mathias Schinner, 
the avowed enemy of the French, arrived with a reinforcement of 
twenty thousand men. He addressed his compatriots '' as a fox 
might address the hens, whom he wished to devour," says 
Fleuranges, and induced them to appeal to a general battle. 

Francis was encamped near the village of Marignano, where he 
was expecting the Venetian army. On the 13th of September, 
15 15, at three o'clock in the afternoon, twenty-four thousand 
Swiss, protected by light plates of armor, and armed with long 
pikes, advanced in three columns over an extended narrow cause- 
way, bordered by marshes, for the purpose of taking possession of 



356 FRANCIS I AND HENRY II 

the French camp. Francis I, advised in time by Fleuranges, had 
divided his army into three parts, commanded by Charles of Bour- 
bon, the duke of Alençon, and by himself. Nevertheless, thirty 
charges delivered by the soldiers of the king could not check the ad- 
vance of the Swiss peasants, who were determined to take possession 
of the cannon. The artillery of Genouillac then opened up entire 
files of them without checking their headlong attack. When night 
fell the two armies were still engaged, and remained thus await- 
ing the day. The king slept upon a gun-carriage, and Bayard, lost 
in the midst of the enemy, had to crawl along the ground without 
headpiece or body armor in order to rejoin his own men. With 
the break of day the combat began again. About ten o'clock the 
Swiss were already beginning to yield, when there resounded in 
their rear the cries of " Marco! Marco! " which announced the 
arrival of the Venetians, and the Swiss fell back upon Milan, hav- 
ing lost fifteen thousand men. This " battle of giants," as Trivulsa 
called it, covered with glory the young king who had valiantly won 
it after having carefully prepared for it. 

3. Treaties with the Swiss and the Pope (1516). — Milan 
fell at once into the hands of Francis, and Maximilian renounced 
all his rights in return for an annual pension of thirty-six thou- 
sand ducats. The Swiss Cantons came to an agreement with 
France and signed the treaty of Fribourg, or the Perpetual Peace, 
September, 15 16. They gave up all their conquests in Italy, except 
Bellinzona, promising never to serve against France, and in re- 
turn for an annual pension of seven hundred thousand crowns, they 
promised to furnish to the king such troops as he should be in need 
of; and Pope Leo X made haste to sign the treaty of Viterbo, by 
which he abandoned Parma and Piacenza. He had a formal in- 
terview with Francis at Bologna, and concluded with him the 
Concordat of August 18, 15 16. The same year Ferdinand 
of Aragon died. His successor, Charles V, desirous above every- 
thing else to gather together his great inheritance, signed with 
France the treaty of Noyon. By its terms he promised to 
marry the daughter of Francis I, the princess Louise, then in the 
cradle, who was to bring as a dower half the kingdom of Naples, 
and to recompense the widow of the king of Navarre for the loss 
of her estates. Peace was also concluded at Cambray with the 
Emperor Maximilian. Thus, Francis I had brought to a success- 



RIVALRY OF FRANCIS I AND CHARLES V 357 

ful conclusion everything which he had undertaken. He had 
displayed an equal grasp of war and of statecraft; and after three 
years of rule he was at the zenith of his power and grandeur. 

4. The Rivalry of Francis I and Charles V. — The death of 
Maximilian in January, 15 19, was the occasion for the outbreak 
of a new struggle which was to last nearly a hundred years. Hav- 
ing attempted in vain to have himself elected emperor, Francis I 
felt wounded in his dignity and swore to take vengeance. There 
were numerous causes for hostility between the two rivals : Charles 
V possessed the kingdom of Naples, which was secretly desired by 
the king of France; in his position as emperor, he was suzerain 
of the Milanais, which belonged to Francis I ; he held possession 
of Navarre which France claimed for the house of Albret, and 
even had rights upon a part of the inheritance of Charles the 
Bold. Besides this, there were other causes which were general, 
or in other words, fatal. " The situation of the countries," says 
Mignet, " was even more conducive to it than the feelings of the 
sovereigns." In the midst of Europe, there was rising a power 
which was as formidable to the liberty of the people as it was to 
their consciences : this was the house of Austria. The grandson of 
Maximilian of Hapsburg and Mary of Burgundy, of Ferdinand of 
Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the head of the German Holy 
Roman Empire, the Catholic king of Spain, sovereign of the Low 
Countries, master of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, of almost all 
the islands of the Mediterranean, and the great empires of America, 
was in himself alone a political coalition. Such power seemed to 
imperil liberty and civilization, as well as to put in jeopardy the 
equilibrium of Europe. It threatened to check the Renaissance, to 
stifle the Reformation in its cradle, and to roll back Europe to 
the midst of the Middle Ages; but if the peril was ominous for 
Europe, it was imminent for France. Surrounded on all sides by 
the immense domains of the Hapsburgs, France seemed on the 
point of being stifled. In this circumstance is to be found a 
justification for the policy consistently followed by Francis I, 
namely, to check the ambition of Charles V, and to restrain that 
Austrian power which aspired to universal monarchy while flaunt- 
ing its audacious device, " ultra metas." 

The two rivals were worthy of each other. Upon the one hand 
Charles V had immense domains, " upon which the sun never set," 



358 FRANCIS I AND HENRY II 

astute ministers like Gattinara and Granvella, illustrious generals 
like Lannoy, Pescara, Antonio de Leyva, an unbroken and well- 
disciplined army. Likewise devoted to pleasure, and to bodily 
exercise, Charles had acquired the habit at the age of fifteen of 
grasping for himself all the important affairs of state. " Consider- 
ate as one who is called upon to decide, patient as one to whom the 
right of command belongs, he had acquired a precocious dignity," 
but his domains were too vast, too far apart one from the other, 
too diverse in the races which inhabited them and in the interests 
which contended in them. On the other hand, Francis I had a 
more compact domain, an authority less questioned, a nobility more 
loyal, and provinces more obedient. He was abundantly provided 
-with money, he had an army extremely well organized, the prestige 
of incomparable military glory, and the resources of an able 
diplomacy. In his case also the soldier many times doubled his 
power as a statesman. The struggle thus proclaimed in advance 
that it would be formidable and hotly contested. 

5. The Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520).— Before actually 
joining the issue, the two rivals cast about for allies. Prepared 
as they were to settle the political mastery of Europe, which was the 
object of their ambition, they stubbornly contended at first for 
the useful friendship of the proud and avaricious Henry VIII, 
and of the inconstant and interested Leo X. The one had 
control of Calais, whence it was always possible to invade France, 
the other the mastery of central Italy, which permitted its pos- 
sessor to drive either the French or the Spanish out of the peninsula. 
For the purpose of winning these two rulers to their cause, 
Francis and Charles engaged in a most spirited political struggle. 
The king of France, in the adherence of Leo X, seemed at first 
to win ; but the emperor offered the pope more seductive terms,- 
and Leo X went over to the side of the emperor. There was 
left the king of England, who had taken for his device, " Whomso- 
ever I defend is master." 

A first interview was held at Dover between Henry and 
Charles, in which the foundations of a future alliance were laid. 
Upon the same day that he took his leave of Charles V, Henry 
VIII embarked for the purpose of an interview with Francis I, 
and the two princes met in a great plain between Guines and 
Ardres. Nothing could be more sumptuous than the interview of 



WAR BETWEEN FRANCIS I AND CHARLES V 359 

the two sovereigns upon the famous Field of the Cloth of Gold. 
The king of France had in his train four cardinals, many princes 
of the blood and illustrious nobles of the realm, who, in order to 
make a showing at this ostentatious ceremony, had sold their 
forests, their mills, and their meadows, all of which they " wore 
on their backs." There was a marvelous succession of fêtes and of 
tournaments in which the two princes each sought to outshine the 
other. After twenty-five days passed together in the midst of 
these rejoicings, Henry VIH and Francis I took leave of each 
other, cordially united in appearance, but without having signed 
a treatj^ No sooner had he left the king of France than Henry 
VHI had a new interview with Charles V at Gravelines. The 
crafty emperor had attached to his interests the all-powerful min- 
ister of England, Cardinal Wolsey, by promising him the papal 
tiara. Wolsey proposed that the king of England should act the 
part of an arbiter for Europe, and won Henry completely over to 
his plan. 

6. The First War Between Francis I and Charles V 
(1520-1526). — Francis I immediately began hostilities by sup- 
porting against the king of Spain the king of Navarre, who wished 
to recover his kingdom, and Robert de la Mark, Count of 
Bouillon, who had revolted against his suzerain, the emperor. 
But the Sire de Lesparre, who crossed the Pyrenees, was beaten at 
Squiros ; and the imperial troops invaded the duchy of Bouillon and 
laid siege to Mézières. Bayard then threw himself into the place 
and compelled the enemy to raise the siege. 

In Italy, Charles V wished to restore the Milanais to Francesco 
Sforza, the second son of Ludovico the Moor. He secured the 
support of Leo X, the Republic of Florence, and the marquis of 
Mantua. The French governor of the Milanais, Lautrec, had 
alienated its inhabitants by the abuses of his administration, and 
he was obliged to evacuate Parma, Piacenza, and even Milan, in 
order to fall back upon Cremona. Prospero Colonna and Pescara 
were intrenched in a strong position at Biococco. It was im- 
prudent to attack the Spanish forces, but Lautrec was afraid of 
being abandoned by the Swiss, who demanded money, leave to 
depart, or a battle. He therefore engaged the enemy, and was 
completely beaten in April, 1522. The Milanais was thus lost 
to France, 



36o FRANCIS I. AND HENRY II 

In the meantime Leo X had died, and was succeeded by- 
Adrian of Utrecht, the former tutor of Charles V, under the 
name of Adrian VI. The emperor, therefore, from this time on, 
could count upon the alliance of the pope. 

7. The Treason of Constable Bourbon (1523).— Francis I 
was making preparations to cross the Alps with twenty-five thou- 
sand men, when he was prevented from leaving France by the trea- 
son of the Constable of Bourbon. Charles of Bourbon was the son 
of Gilbert of Bourbon, Count of Montpensier. He had married his 
cousin Suzanne, daughter of Peter II of Bourbon and Anne of 
Beaujeu, heiress of the elder branch, and had thus united in his 
person all the immense domains of the house of Bourbon. Out- 
side of this vast dominion he had several less important lordships. 
He bore himself as an actual sovereign, held a brilliant court at 
Moulins, levied taxes, called together the Estates of the country, 
and could place a considerable army on foot. " If I had a subject 
like him," said Henry VIII, " I would not leave a head upon his 
shoulders very long." The Constable was as dangerous as he was 
powerful. Having a firm mind, a resolute character, and an un- 
bounded pride, he might have been a great prince, but he was only 
a great adventurer. 

The writers of the XVI century, who are favorable to the cause 
of Charles of Bourbon, have succeeded in gaining credence for a 
legend which has been accepted for a long time without reservation. 
Louise of Savoy, they say, had conceived a violent passion for the 
illustrious Constable; when his wife died, she wished to marry 
him. Irritated by his refusal, she swore to have vengeance, had 
him brought to trial and secured the confiscation of his goods. 
From this fact arose the resentment of the Constable, who forth- 
with went over to the enemy. This is a fable devoid of all plausi- 
bility. 

As a matter of fact, Louise of Savoy, as the nearest relative of 
Suzanne, was the natural heiress of such lands, not appanaged, 
as the princess had gotten together; at the same time, Francis I 
had the right to demand possession of the masculine fiefs, as 
appanages of the crown. These claims were brought before Par- 
lement, and they contributed to the discontent of the Constable ; but 
it can be shown today that even before the death of Suzanne he 
had responded to the tentative offers of Charles V, that he had 



THE BATTLE OF PAVIA 361 

for a long time planned his defection, and that his unbridled am- 
bition was the single motive for his criminal determination. 
Furious at the news that Parlement had ordered the sequestration 
of his goods, he signed a treaty with the emperor and with the 
king of England. France was to be dismembered, and the ancient 
kingdom of Aries was to be given to the Constable, as well as the 
hand of Eleanor, the emperor's sister. Francis I, immediately 
informed, betook himself to Moulins, and unsuccessfully at- 
tempted to secure a confession from the Constable. Bourbon, 
fearing arrest, disguised himself and took to flight, bringing to the 
emperor nothing but the sword of a proscribed man. 

8. The War in Italy and in Provence. — Bourbon had 
counted upon a feudal revolt; but times had changed, and no 
one stirred in favor of a man who v/as no more than a rebel subject. 
The Constable was, nevertheless, formidable. The royal general 
who opposed him, Bonnivet, was beaten at Biagrasso, and gave 
over the command to Bayard, who was defeated at Romagnano 
and received a shot from an arquebus which shattered his spine. 
The heroic Chevalier was stretched out at the foot of a tree and 
prepared to die as a Christian after having fought all his life as 
a hero. Bourbon, who commanded the advance guard of the 
enemy, came up and saw Bayard in his agony. He protested that 
he was very sorry indeed to see him in that condition. " Mon- 
sieur," the dying man is said to have responded, '^ do not feel 
sorry for me, for I die as a man of honor, but I am sorry for you 
to see you serving against your prince, your country, and your 
oath" (1524). Bonnivet recrossed the Alps and brought back 
into France the remnants of his army, while Bourbon invaded 
Provence and laid siege to Marseilles ; but the city offered an heroic 
resistance, and, after a siege of forty days, the enemy was obliged 
to withdraw into Italy. 

9. The Battle of Pavia (1525).— The French king at once 
crossed the Alps, and took possession of Milan, but set his heart 
upon the siege of Pavia instead of accomplishing the rout of the 
imperialists. Lannoy, Bourbon, and Pescara profited by this 
blunder to reinforce their army, and to march to the aid of the 
place. The French at ]VIirabello held an impregnable position, 
from which they could watch at the same time the besieged city, 
and the relieving army prepared to capture the one and to disperse 



362 FRANCIS I. AND HENRY II 

the other. Here the king of France committed a new blunder by- 
accepting the battle which was offered him February 25th, 1525. 
The French artillery, directed by Galliot de Genouillac, at first 
wrought terrible havoc in the ranks of the enemy, but the king, 
seeing the imperialists in disorder, hurled himself upon them at 
the head of his troops, and so masked the fire of his own batteries. 
At once the Spanish infantry re-formed, the Swiss took to flight, 
and the lanzknechts were crushed by Bourbon. A terrible mêlée 
took place around the king, who performed prodigious feats of 
valor. His best captains, Tremoille, Palice, Lescun, Bonnivet, and 
Louis d'Ars, fell about him. Himself twice wounded, he fought 
for a long time on foot, and ended by surrendering his sword to 
the Viceroy of Naples, Lannoy, who received it upon his knees. 
On the evening of the battle, he wrote to his mother a letter which 
closed with these words: ''To inform you of my misfortune that 
nothing is left me but honor and life, which is saved." There 
has been made from this statement the heroic utterance, " Madam, 
all is lost, save honor." 

10. The Treaty of Madrid (1526). — Having been conducted 
to the castle of Pizzighettone, near Genoa, Francis I was trans- 
ferred to Madrid, and kept in strict confinement. In France the 
news of the defeat at Pavia had created terrible consternation ; but 
the regent, Louise of Savoy, was as energetic as she was intelligent. 
She adequately provided for the general security, got together a 
new army, received the assurance of the devotion of the duke of 
Vendôme, the nobility. Parlement, and the bourgeoisie, she signed 
treaties of alliance with Henry VIII, the Swiss, the Italian princes, 
and even opened up negotiations with the Sultan Solyman. 

As to Francis I, he had counted upon the magnanimity of his 
rival, but was treated without consideration by Charles V, who 
refused to see him. The first conditions which the emperor con- 
sented to offer were so humiliating that the king spurned them 
with indignation. He was to renounce Burgundy, Naples, and the 
Milanais, and to give up Provence and Dauphiny to Bourbon. 
Francis I exclaimed that he would die in irons, before he would 
sacrifice his honor. He fell sick immediately, and the emperor, 
fearing for his life, allowed his sister Marguerite to come and care 
for him. The king, at her advice, for an instant entertained the 
heroic idea of abdicating in favor of his son and of thus leaving in 



THE SACK OF ROME 363 

the hands of his enemy only a simple knight, but he did not hold 
to this resolution, and he resolved at any price to obtain his 
freedom, and signed the treaty of Madrid, not without having 
secretly protested against the force which was imposed upon him 
(January 14th, 1526). He gave up to Charles V, Burgundy, 
Charolais, Château-Chinon, and Auxonne ; and renounced his right 
of suzerainty upon Flanders, as well as his claims upon Milan, 
Naples, and Genoa. He was to restore Bourbon to his property 
and to his honors, pay a large ransom, espouse Eleanor, sister of 
the emperor, and leave his two eldest sons as hostages for the 
faithful execution of the treaty. On March 13th, Francis passed 
the Bidassoa into French territory and, mounted upon a horse, 
he cried, ** At last! I am king! " It was easy to foresee that he 
would not fulfil the hard conditions which had been imposed 
upon him, taking the view of the papal nuncio who wrote: Non 
stant foedera facta metu. (No treaties are valid which are com- 
pelled by fear.) 

11. The Second War with Charles V (1526-1529).— The 
king of France at once called together the Assembly of Cognac, 
composed of princes, nobles, and bishops, and had the deputies 
from Burgundy appear there. They declared that they wanted 
to remain French, and protested against a dismemberment of the 
kingdom. Francis I freed himself from his promises in this way, 
and when Charles V accused him of perfidy, the king responded 
that the emperor lied in his throat and challenged him to single 
combat. At the same time he signed with Venice, Pope Clement 
Vn, Florence, and the duke of Milan, the League of Cognac 
(1526). The avowed purpose of this league was the establish- 
ment of a permanent peace, and Charles V was asked to join it, 
but he not unnaturally refused to do so. 

12. The Sack of Rome. — The Italians, terribly oppressed by 
the agents of the emperor, decided with great enthusiasm upon 
a war against him. Unfortunately, they lacked unity and energ}^ 
and the king of France, taken up with the enjoyment of his 
liberty, took very little pains to support them. Bourbon, on the 
other hand, gathered together the forces scattered over the northern 
part of Italy, and joined to them the fifteen thousand Lutheran 
lanzknechts of George Frundsberg, who wore around his neck 
a chain of gold with which to strangle the pope. The hostile 



364 FRANCIS i: AND HENRY II 

army marched upon Rome, which was the center of the coalition. 
Bourbon was ascending one of the ramparts in an assault, but 
fell, struck by a shot from an arquebus, which Benvenuto Cellini 
boasts of having fired. His troops avenged him by taking pos- 
session of the city and gave it over to a cruel pillage (May 6th, 
1527). For several days the Lutherans of Frundsberg forced the 
convents, despoiled the altars, profaned the churches, and cele- 
brated under the eyes of the pope the coarsest parodies upon 
the Catholic religion. While " great Babylon " was thus being 
sacked, Charles V, in the midst of Catholic Spain, displayed 
apparently hypocritical grief, and, putting on mourning with all 
his court, he commanded prayers and processions for the pope's 
liberty. 

13. The Treaty of Cambrai (1529).— Francis I then re- 
solved to intervene. Lautrec, having been sent into Italy, occupied 
the Milanais, crossed the Romagna, and pursued the troops of 
Bourbon as far as Naples. The French army before Naples lacked 
provisions, and inasmuch as they were being decimated by the 
plague, which carried off Lautrec, the marquis of Saluzzo who 
succeeded him, was obliged to capitulate August 30th, 1528. In 
the Milanais the count of Saint-Pol was defeated in his turn at 
Landriano (1529). Thus Italy was once again lost to the French. 

In spite of these victories, the emperor, who viewed with appre- 
hension Solyman's invasion of his realm and the great strides 
which the Reformation was making in Germany, was ready to 
make terms. The basis of peace was accordingly arranged by 
Margaret of Austria, aunt of Charles V, and Louise of Savoy, who 
held an interview at Cambrai, where they drew up what is known 
as the Ladies' Peace, August 5th, 1529. 

By its terms the emperor gave up Burgundy, but Francis re- 
nounced his suzerainty over Flanders, ratified the marriage with 
Eleanor, the sister of Charles V, gave two million crowns of gold 
as a ransom for his sons, and abandoned his allies, Henry d'Albret, 
the duke of Bouillon, and the Italians. France was not broken up 
by this treaty, but Charles V, nevertheless, triumphed by means 
of it. At Bologna, he received the two crowns of Italy and the 
empire at the hands of Clement VII, and reigned as master of the 
fate of the peninsula, which remained from this time on under the 
influence of the house of Austria; but it was easy to foresee that 



THE NEW FOREIGN POLICY OF FRANCIS I 365 

the treaty of Cambrai would be less a peace than a truce between 
the tw^o powerful rivals. 

14. The New Foreign Policy of Francis I. — The treaty of 
Cambrai defines a new era in the reign of Francis I, since the 
five years of peace which followed it were marked by a complete 
change in the domestic and foreign policy of France. Within, he 
reorganized the government, made his authority there more abso- 
lute, and took up important financial and military measures; 
without, he inaugurated a new system of alliances. With this 
end in view he sought to group around France the small states 
which threatened the house of Austria and to maintain that 
European equilibrium, the idea of which spread in the XVI century. 
In support of this idea, he did not hesitate to ally himself with a 
schismatic king, with heretical princes, and with an infidel ruler. 

In Italy he came to an intimate understanding with Clement 
VII, had his son Henry marry the niece of the pope, Catharine de' 
Medici, and recognized Francesco Sforza as duke of Milan. He 
gave in marriage to James V of Scotland, the princess Mary of 
Lorraine, and helped on the divorce of Henry VIII from Catharine 
of Aragon ; made a close alliance with the king of England ; and 
signed a treaty with Gustavus Vasa, who had just introduced Lu- 
theranism into Sweden. Furthermore, the king of France, who 
sent French heretics to the stake, did not scruple to enter into agree- 
ments with the Protestants of Germany, and signed a treaty with 
the Schmalkaldic League; but the boldest, most liberal, and most 
decisive act of French diplomacy was the alliance which he con- 
cluded with the Sublime Porte. 

Only Sol5'man the Magnificent, with his numerous armies, and 
his formidable fleets, could hold the emperor in check, and Francis 
I did not hesitate to seek in the Orient a counterpoise to the 
Austrian power, by placing his reliance in the leader of Islamism. 
Solyman was a man of intelligence, at the same time a soldier and 
a man of letters, a formidable conqueror, an able diplomatist, and 
under his reign the Ottoman Empire continued its rapid progress. 
Master of the Mediterranean, he had invaded Hungary, and had 
threatened Vienna. Fortunately for France the diplomatic nego- 
tiations with Solyman, secretly begun by Louise of Savoy and con- 
tinued after the battle of Pavia, ended in the capitulations of 
1535, which assured to France certain definite cornmercial, diplo- 



366 FRANCIS I AND HENRY II 

matic, and religious advantages. This alliance of the Crescent and 
the Lily, which shocked the prejudices of the time and the un- 
broken tradition of Christendom, created profound astonishment 
and scandalized European statesmen. During this time Charles V, 
assuming the rôle of the defender of Christendom only, organized 
two expeditions against Tunis and Algiers (1535-1541). 

15. The Third War with Charles V (1536-1538).— Never- 
theless, the emperor had the French agent in the Milanais, 
Maraviglia, assassinated. The war was thereupon resumed, and 
the king of France demanded the Milanais on the death of 
Francesco (II) Sforza. The duke of Savoy, Charles III, brother- 
in-law of the emperor, then endeavored to close the passage of the 
Alps to the French, but Francis I took vengeance by occupying 
his territory. Yet he allowed himself to be misled by the promises 
of Charles V, who was not at all prepared for the struggle, and 
sought to win time by means of negotiation. When the emperor 
had collected an army, he threw aside the mask, launched a violent 
manifesto against his adversary, and invaded France at the head of 
sixty thousand men. Charles felt so absolutely sure of success that 
he recommended the historian Paul Jova " to get pen and ink 
ready " in order to recount his exploits. 

Montmorency, intrusted with the responsibility of repelling the 
invasion, made a desert of Provence, dismantled all the fortified 
places excepting Aries and Marseilles, and withdrew to Avignon. 
Repulsed before Marseilles, decimated by the plague, and harassed 
by the peasants, the imperial army was obliged finally to recross the 
Var (1536). Montmorency had saved the country, and through- 
out the kingdom there was only praise for the " Fabius of France." 
At the same time Vendôme and Fleuranges repulsed the count of 
Nassau in Flanders, while the Spaniards failed in the Langue d'Oc. 
The year 1536 was thus a year of misfortune for the emperor. 

Hostilities continued without decisive results in Italy and in 
Picardy, but in 1537 the fleet of Barbarossa threatened Calabria, 
while Solyman defeated the Hungarians at Eszek. Pope Paul 
III then intervened, and a ten years' truce was signed at Nice 
(1538). Each of the two adversaries wished to retain what he 
had already conquered, and an interview between them was brought 
about at Aigues-Mortes, where Francis I and Charles V simulated 
the greatest friendship and the deepest confidence. The king of 



TREATIES OF CRESPY AND ARDRES 367 

France went on board one of the warships of the emperor, who in 
return passed the night in one of the king's establishments. 

Charles V asked permission to cross France in order that he 
might chastise the revolted inhabitants of Ghent (1540). Francis 
generously acceded to his wish, celebrated magnificent fêtes in 
honor of his guest, and when he was urged to retain his rival as a 
prisoner, he repulsed the proposition with contempt. Nevertheless, 
he profited by the passage of the emperor to resume negotiations 
with reference to the Milanais, but had to content himself with a 
rather vague promise that his son should have the investiture of it. 

16. The Fourth War (1542-1544).— Charles at once denied 
that he promised anything at all, however, and gave the investi- 
ture of the Milanais to his own son Philip. He had assassinated 
at Pavia two secret agents of France, whom Francis I had sent to 
Solyman. Thereupon the king of France demanded satisfaction 
from the emperor, and, upon his refusal, immediately resumed 
hostilities. 

Five armies were set on foot to attack Roussillon, the Low 
Countries, and Italy. The French unsuccessfully laid siege to 
Perpignan in the south, but took Landrecies in the north, and 
to the great scandal of Christendom, the Turkish admiral, Kair- 
Eddin Barbarossa, ravaged the coast of Calabria, and, in concert 
with the French fleet, bombarded Nice, which, nevertheless, 
could not be taken. During the following year a French army 
commanded by the count of Enghien of the house of Bourbon 
crossed the Alps for the purpose of conquering the Milanais. 

He crushed the enemy at Cerisoles, but that brilliant victory 
remained without consequences. As a matter of fact, it failed to 
repulse a double invasion from the north. Henry VIII had in- 
vaded Picardy and had laid siege to Boulogne, and Charles V took 
possession of Saint-Dizier, Epernay, and Château-Thierry, twenty- 
four leagues from the capital. The Parisians began to take flight 
to Orléans, and Francis I cried : '* Dieu, you have made me pay 
dear for that crown which I am supposed to receive at your hands 
as a gift." 

17. The Treaties of Crespy (1544) and of Ardres (1546). 
— Fortunately for France, the two allies, Charles and Henry, 
quarreled. Irritated by the delays of the king of England, and 
harassed on the side of Germany, where the Lutheran rebels 



368 FRANCIS I AND HENRY II 

were making trouble, the emperor offered peace to Francis I, and 
the treaty of Crespy was signed September i8th, 1544. 

By its terms Charles V promised the hand of his daughter, or 
of his niece, to the duke of Orléans, second son of the king, with 
the Milanais as a dower. Francis I, in the meantime, was to re- 
tain possession of Savoy until the consummation of the marriage. 
The young duke of Orléans who had secretly protested against 
the treaty, died in the following year, and as a result of this cir- 
cumstance, Francis retained possession of Savoy and Charles V 
of the Milanais. 

The war dragged on for some time against Henry VIII, who 
had taken possession of Boulogne, but the king of England finally 
consented to the peace of Ardres (1546), by which he promised to 
give up Boulogne in eight years in return for a payment of two 
million crowns of gold. 

18. The Death of Francis I (1547).— Soon after this Henry 
VIII died, in the month of January, 1547, and Francis I closely 
followed him to the tomb, March 31st, 1547. No king has ever 
retained such a place in the memory of the people as the brilliant 
monarch of the Renaissance. Without doubt he made mistakes 
and furnished a sad example, pushing gallantry to the point of 
debauchery, bravery to the verge of rashness, and the spirit of 
authority to absolutism. Too often also he knew no other law 
than his instincts, his impulses, and the interests of his power; 
but as Thierry says, " It often happened that he acted justly in 
the interest of his glory and for the good of the realm." 

19. Henry II (1547-1559). — Henry II, the son and successor 
of Francis I, was twenty-eight years old when he came to the 
throne. As brave as his father, whom he strikingly resembled 
physically, he was far from having his brilliant qualities. Prodigal, 
and the friend of pleasure, he was a man of extraordinary igno- 
rance, and at a time when letters were held in so high esteem 
he could scarcely do more than read and write. He had a narrow 
mind and a character which was weak and easily led. Thus, his 
reign " should perhaps be called the reign of the Constable, of 
Mademoiselle de Valentinois (Diana of Poitiers), and of Monsieur 
de Guise, not his." 

20. The Factions of the Court. — Factions at once formed at 
the court. The queen, Catharine de' Medici, was cast aside for a 



HENRY'S WAR AGAINST CHARLES V 369 

brilliant favorite, Diana of Poitiers, who displayed everywhere 
her insolent device: consequitur quodcunque petit. The Constable 
Montmorency, dismissed by Francis I, was a friend of the new 
king, who called him his " father " and restored him at once to 
power; but the most powerful faction was that of the Guises. 
They belonged to a cadet branch of the house of Lorraine, which 
had been established in France since the time of Claude of Guise. 
His eldest son, Francis of Guise, was a warrior, and at the same 
time an able politician. His brother, Charles, who was archbishop 
of Rheims, at the age of nine, and then a cardinal, was an educated 
prelate, but little regarded, though an eloquent speaker. At the 
same time able and fortunate, the Guises aspired to all honors, 
claimed every right, invaded the army, the Church, the finances, 
and were at one time upon the point of founding in France a 
fourth dynasty. 

2L The First Years of Henry II. — The opening years of 
the reign were not fortunate. In the southwest, discontented be- 
cause of the tax upon salt, the provinces of Poitou, Saintonge, and 
Guienne rose against the governor of Bordeaux. The Con- 
stable, Montmorency, was despatched against the rebels, and hav- 
ing entered Bordeaux through a breach in the wall, tore down the 
Maison de Ville and condemned the inhabitants to render satis- 
faction. It was in consequence of this pitiless repression that a 
young man of twenty-eight. La Boetie, wrote his famous address, 
the Discourse upon Voluntary Servitude. 

Because the English had rendered assistance to the Guienne 
sedition, Henry II at once sent aid to the regent of Scotland, 
Mary of Lorraine, and betrothed to the Dauphin, Francis, the 
young Marie Stuart, who was conducted to France. Strozzi de- 
feated an English fleet off Guernsey, and Henry II laid siege to 
Boulogne. The English then came to terms, and surrendered 
"Boulogne in return for a hundred thousand crowns of gold. 

22. Henry's War Against Charles V. — Henry IFs real 
enemy, however, w^as Charles V, who took no pains to disguise the 
hatred which he felt for the king. " If his father," said the 
emperor, " dragged the Turk in by the hair, Henry would drag 
him in by the hair, the hands, and feet." After the renewal of 
his alliance wnth Solyman, Henry despatched aid to Ottavio Far- 
nese, who was threatened by the emperor in Parma, and by the 



370 FRANCIS I AND HENRY II 

stipulations of the treaties of Friedewald (1552) and Chambord, 
Henry bound himself to furnish subsidies to the Lutheran princes 
of Germany, who, in return, authorized him to take under his 
protection the three episcopal towns, Metz, Toul, and Verdun, 
in which the French language was spoken. 

War broke out in 1552. While Maurice of Saxony at the 
head of the German Protestant princes suddenly attacked Charles 
V at Innsbruck, Henry II sent a formal defiance to the emperor, 
under the title of *' Protector of Germanic Liberties," easily took 
possession of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and promised to " water 
his horses in the Rhine." Charles V made haste to induce the 
Protestants to lay down their arms by the peace of Passau, and 
besieged Metz with sixty thousand men, seven thousand pioneers, 
and one hundred and forty cannon, but Duke Francis of Guise 
threw himself into the place with ten thousand men, and repulsed 
every attack made by the Imperialists (1553). Charles V was 
obliged to withdraw after losing almost one-third of his army. " I 
see," he said, " that fortune, like women, prefers a young king 
to an old emperor." He took revenge for his failure by throwing 
himself upon Artois, and by then taking and destroying succes- 
sively Thérouanne and Hesdin (1553). 

The French in their turn invaded Hainaut, and defeated the 
Imperialists at Renty (1554). At the same time the French fleet 
met with considerable success, and defeated the Spaniards near 
Dover; but in Italy Strozzi was overthrown at Marciano, and 
the city of Siena, in spite of the heroic resistance of Monluc, was 
compelled to surrender. 

23. Abdication of Charles V (1555). — Nevertheless, Charles 
V, enfeebled by his advancing age, bending under the weight of 
affairs, and despondent by reason of an incurable melancholy, had, 
for a long time, sought to lay aside the burden which his several 
crowns imposed upon him. Having signed with France the truce 
of Vaucelles, he appeared October 25th, 1555, before the Estates 
of Flanders, which had assembled at Brussels, clad in mourning, and 
wearing the collar of the Golden Fleece. Resting one hand upon 
a cane, the other upon the shoulder of William of Nassau, he 
set forth the reasons which compelled him to lay aside the gov- 
ernment of the Estates. Having yielded to his brother Ferdi- 
nand II, King of the Romans, his Austrian Estates, Bohemia and 



THE WAR WITH PHILIP II 37 1 

Tyrol, he formally surrendered, successively at Brussels, and at 
Madrid, the Low Countries, Franche-Comté, Spain, Naples, and 
Milan to his son Philip. This extraordinary determination pro- 
duced profound astonishment in the minds of his contemporaries. 
Pope Paul IV thought that the emperor had " lost his mind," and 
declared that he was afflicted with the same kind of madness as 
his mother. As a matter of fact, Charles V, who for a long 
time had experienced a feeling of disgust for the supreme authority, 
yielded to the discouragement which his numerous failures had 
brought upon him, to his increasing ill health, and to the in- 
firmities of age. He chose as a place for his final retreat the beauti- 
ful valley called La Vera de Plasencia in the mountains of Estre- 
madura, and entered the Hieronymite monastery of Yuste. In 
this beautiful retreat where he had numerous servants, a sump- 
tuous establishment, and a rich library, he never ceased to take 
the most active interest in the affairs of Europe. " In withdraw- 
ing from the scene," says Mignet, *' he did not withdraw from 
history." - He died September 21st, 1558. Thereafter the power 
of Charles V was divided between the two branches of the house 
of Austria, a piece of good fortune for Europe, but especially 
fortunate for France, which was able to oppose them separately. 

24. The War v^^ith Philip II. — The truce of Vaucelles lasted 
scarcely five months. Pope Paul IV of the house of Caraffa was an 
impetuous and high-spirited old man, who, in spite of his seventy- 
nine years, wished to drive from Italy the Spaniards who were 
good enough, said he, to be cooks and stable-boys for the Italians. 
He won to his cause through the influence of his nephew. Cardinal 
Caraffa, the Guises, w^ho were favorable to the war because it 
would contribute to the success of their ambition, inasmuch as 
they had claims upon the kingdom of Naples. 

Duke Francis of Guise entered the Peninsula but was unable 
to take possession of Civitella, and was recalled to France by the 
news of the disaster at Saint-Quentin, while Paul IV, threatened 
by the duke of Alva, was compelled to give up his great design, and 
to sign a peace w4th Philip II who remained master of Italy. 

During this time an army composed of English and Spaniards 
invaded France and laid siege to Saint-Quentin. Admiral Coligny 
threw himself into the place and defended it valiantly, but while 
hastening to revictual it, Montmorency made the mistake of en- 



372 FRANCIS I AND HENRY II 

gaging sixty thousand men with twenty-five thousand. He was 
defeated and fell into the hands of the enemy August loth, 1557. 
"Is my son in Paris?" cried Charles V upon receiving news of 
the battle. "No!" "Then nothing is done." Philip II by 
stopping to besiege Saint-Quentin gave Henry II time to collect 
his reinforcements and to recall the duke of Guise. 

The duke, named Lieutenant General of the realm, then revived 
the waning courage of the nation by a glorious feat of arms. He 
suddenly appeared Before Calais and took the fortress in eight 
days, January 8th, 1558. This bold stroke astonished Europe 
and raised immensely the popularity of Francis of Guise. 

25. The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559). — Hostilities 
were resumed in the spring, but negotiations, opened up four 
months later, were completed in the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis. 
By its terms Philip II and Heriry II mutually restored their con- 
quests in the Low Countries and in Picardy, but the king of 
France kept the three bishoprics, Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and, 
in return for a payment of five hundred thousand crowns, Calais 
and its dependencies, which was called the " reconquered " terri- 
tory. He restored to the duke of Savoy his estates, with the ex- 
ception of Pignerol and Turin, and returned Montferrat to the 
marquis of Mantua, and Corsica to the Genoese. The daughter 
of Henry II, Elizabeth, was given in marriage to Philip II, and 
Marguerite, his sister, married Philibert Emanuel of Savoy. 

26. Results of the Italian Wars. — This treaty naturally 
occasioned great indignation among the soldiers of Henry II's 
court, since the Spanish domination found itself restrengthened 
in the entire length of the Italian peninsula, and Philip II remained 
as powerful as Charles V had been. Nevertheless, while Italy 
was closed to the French, the acquisition of Calais and the three 
bishoprics rounded out the French frontier to the north and east, 
and led the future course of French diplomacy in its proper 
direction. 

The Italian wars which the treaty brought to a close were far 
from having been sterile for France. That country could only 
gain by its contact with the brilliant Italian civilization. France 
received an art of government from Italy, which for a long time 
had had a regular system of diplomacy. The great publicist, 
Machiavelli, had drawn up rules for it, and the republic of 



THE DEATH OF HENRY H 373 

Venice had furnished concrete examples. France, which adopted 
it, made it a European institution. She organized definitely this 
new science which had for its purpose the regulations of a proper 
understanding between states and the establishing of a proper 
equilibrium between them. 

Further than this, the Italian wars had aroused the martial 
spirit of France, and had added glorious pages to her military his- 
tory. Finally, they revealed to the rough French nobility a 
world elevated by delicate enjoyments, and initiated France into 
the easy and brilliant life of the Renaissance. 

27. The Death of Henry II (1559).— During the fêtes which 
were celebrated in consequence of the treaty, Henry II desired to 
take part in some of the tournaments. On the 29th of June he 
broke several lances with the dukes of Guise and Nemours, where 
he wore the colors of Diana of Poitiers, black and white; but in 
a final passage at arms with Montgomery, a captain of the guards, 
a splinter from his opponent's lance penetrated his visor and in- 
flicted a mortal wound. He languished for eleven days and ex- 
pired on the loth of July. In spite of his unfortunate wars and 
a peace even more unfortunate, he died regretted by his subjects. 
He left France to the government of a king sixteen years of age, 
torn by factions, and on the verge of a long period of civil wars 
and public calamities. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FRANCE IN THE FIRST 
HALF OF THE XVI CENTURY 

1. The Absolute Monarchy. — The events of the XVI cen- 
tury, even more than those of the preceding centuries, exerted a 
profound influence upon Europe. In this century there cul- 
minated three great movements: the Renaissance; the Reforma- 
tion; and the triumph of the central power in France. The 
Renaissance undermined the whole spirit of the Middle Ages 
as it found expression in literature and art, the Reformation de- 
stroyed the unity of Christian Europe and overthrew the omnipo- 
tence of the Church, and French royalty continued to advance 
and to establish upon new foundations its absolute power. In 
each case the forces which produced these movements were of 
such nature that they ultimately destroyed the entire structure 
of society in the Middle Ages. 

Monarchical absolutism, imposed upon France by the rough 
policy of Louis XI and rendered popular by the paternal adminis- 
tration of Louis XII, displayed itself in its true light in the 
reigns of Francis I and Henry II. Before 15 15, royalty had not 
yet freed itself from the feudal system, for it still formed a part 
of this complicated organism which hampered and modified it. 
Claude de Seyssel, in his Grand Monarchy, describes a control 
which is absolute and at the same time moderate, a government in 
which the monarchy is to be all-powerful, but tempered by three 
necessary restraints, religion, justice, and public order. But these 
checks, which existed in the modest bourgeois government of 
Louis XII, were very quickly pushed aside, and Francis I, the 
successor of Louis, is the first of the absolute kings of France. 

Established as a matter of fact, royal absolutism had still to 
be justified as a matter of right, and the efforts of the legists 
^nd the statesmen were directed toward the promulgation of an 

374 



THE COURT OF THE KING 375 

official doctrine, which in time became inseparable from French 
patriotism. The treatise of John Ferrault, published in 15 15, 
Insignia peculiaria christianissimi Francorum regni, and that of 
Charles Grassaille, which appeared in 1538, set forth the theory 
of absolutism almost as an article of faith. They celebrated " the 
grandeur and superexcellence " of the king of France, proclaiming 
him the king of kings; a veritable god. 

Representing God upon earth, possessor of the crown by virtue 
of the Salic law, eldest son of the Church, he *' held only from 
God and by his sword," and he was responsible to God alone. 
He recognized neither as a matter of law, nor as a matter of fact, 
any superior in things temporal, neither the sovereign pontiff nor 
the emperor. Himself the supreme judge, he could suppress all in- 
ferior tribunals. He alone made the laws and interpreted them. 
He, too, had the sole right of issuing ordinances, of coining 
money, of establishing new taxes, and of raising troops. These are 
the ideas which one meets with in the majority of the writers of the 
time, and such was the monarchical system. The conception was 
not indeed new, for the legists of Philip the Fair had already 
formulated it, but with the victor of Marignano the reality was 
made to accord with the theory. 

2. The Court of the King. — To this all-powerful king, a 
brilliant court was essential ; to this centralized government, a real 
capital was indispensable. Little by little a profound revolution 
took place. Louis XII, Francis I, and Henry II did not resemble 
at all the kings of the XIV and XV centuries, who shut themselves 
up in narrow chambers, like Charles VII, or who intrenched them- 
selves in some impregnable manor, like Louis XL They were joy- 
ous monarchs, the friends of pleasure, passionately devoted to bodily 
exercise, eager for festivals, balls, and tournaments. They at- 
tracted to the court that adventurous nobility which, during the 
Italian wars, had taken on the more delicate and refined Renais- 
sance taste for pleasure. They liked beautiful pictures, impressive 
statues, and marvelous castles, and this new passion they were 
enabled to gratify in the sumptuous abodes of the sovereign. 

The barons flocked to the court, bringing with them their wives 
and their daughters. Thus, accepting with profound gratitude 
the title of chamberlains or esquires, they formed the ordinary 
retinue of the king, and made up the household of the king, the 



376 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FRANCE 

household of the queen and that of the princes of the blood. A 
contemporary has estimated at eighteen thousand men this bril- 
liant crowd of gentlemen who formed the cortege of the monarch. 

3. The Régime of Women. — Side by side with the house- 
hold of the king, formed by the gentlemen, was the household of 
the queen, formed by their wives and daughters. " A court with- 
out ladies is a springtime without roses," said Francis I, and the 
ladies from this time on played an important political rôle. They 
participated in the affairs of the state, enriched themselves at the 
expense of the treasury, and assured to their creatures the enjoy- 
ment of the highest offices. Yet their influence was, for the most 
part, salutary. To cite the phrase of the Venetian ambassador, 
*' Marguerite of Valois has the most solid sense, not only of all 
the women, but of all the men as well." Louise of Savoy at times 
could exercise real statecraft. The ladies of honor, indeed, many 
times so frivolous, redeemed their frivolity by demanding bravery 
of their lovers. Thus, when the duke of Alençon fled from the 
battle of Pavia, he died covered with shame in the eyes of his wife ; 
and when another was thrown to the ground in a duel before 
the ladies, he would not reappear as a vanquished man in their 
eyes, but tore off with his own hands the bandages which bound 
up his wounds. Yet too often the court presented the immoral 
spectacle of an all-powerful favorite haughtily enjoying her tri- 
umph. Under Francis I it was Madame Chauteaubriand, then 
the duchess of Etampes; under Henry II it was Diana of Poitiers. 
This hard-hearted and ambitious beauty dominated the whole 
reign. John Goujon made a statue of her as Diana the Huntress 
which stood in the Château Anet, and Leonard Limousin placed 
her as the blonde and haughty goddess by the side of the king in 
Jupiter. Du Bellay and Ronsard celebrated her in their enthusi- 
astic verses, and De Thou in his History. The king himself wore 
a doublet of white leather with an H between two Z)'s upon it, 
and the monogram of the favorite is figured on the uniform of 
the Swiss and the Scots of the guard, in the sculptures of the 
Louvre, and upon the paneling of Chenonceaux. 

Later came the dominion of Mary Stuart under Francis II, 
and that of Catharine de' Medici under Charles IX and Henry 
III. This resourceful Florentine woman established a *' flying 
squadron " of maids of honor as a definite means of government. 



THE LIFE OF THE NOBLES AT COURT 377 

She gave them sumptuous costumes, cloaks of purple velvet, and 
hats with gold braid and violet plumes ; they became in her hands 
a means of political seduction, and their gallantries assured to 
her the fidelity of their noble lovers. 

4. The Life of the Nobles at Court. — The nobility which 
followed the king became, in the eyes of Europe, the most per- 
fect example of elegance. " The court," according to Brantôme, 
" is the real paradise of the world, the school of all breeding, the 
adornment of France." As to dress, the barons wore a close 
coat which imitated the corsage of the women, a short cloak which 
fell a little below the hips, toques surmounted by plumes or an 
aigrette, and high-pleated ruffs held in shape by brass wires. 
This was the Italian costume of the princes and the courtiers, in 
imitation of that worn by Caesar Borgia. They insisted as well 
upon the observance of the precepts which the Italian, Castiglione, 
had laid down in his book, the famous Courtier, learning from it 
the art of adroitly insinuating themselves into the favor of princes 
and of maintaining themselves there by daily flattery. The 
women wore tight, pointed corsages, reinforced by corsets made 
of strips of ivory, which dug into the flesh; cuffs and shoulders 
which were stuffed and ballooned out; extravagant coiffures, and 
great ruffs which enveloped the head. 

Pleasures succeeded one another without interruption in that 
abode of delights which was called the Court. " That joyous 
court, always upon the move," says Michelet, " seemed like an 
animated romance, a pantagruelic pilgrimage along the banks of 
the Loire from château to château, from forest to forest." 
There was no end of tournaments and sham combats like those 
which Henry II loved, and which multiplied during his reign. 

The most illustrious knights participated in these encounters, 
covering themselves with a veil of mystery; and, borrowing their 
pseudonyms from the heroes of Boiardo, and Ariosto, they called 
themselves " Mandricardo, Ruggiero, Orlando, or Sacripante." 
They wore incised and damascened armor; this was no longer the 
shell of iron imprisoning the man, as in the Middle Ages, but a 
light coat which permitted the maximum of suppleness and grace 
to the movements of the body. Upon their heads they wore a 
casque provided with a visor and surmounted with a thick tuft of 
plumes. They were trained in the use of the long heavy sword 



378 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FRANCE 

and long lances of wood, pinked, painted, and ornamented with 
gold. The lists were sown with fine sand, and the posts which 
marked it out were hung with escutcheons covered with heraldic 
emblems and devices. 

The king was the center of this brilliant society. Every one 
wanted to see him, to please him, and to perform for him some act 
of courtesy. When he arose, princes and knights were admitted to 
his royal chamber, and assisted at his toilet. Little by little, the 
most rigorous etiquette established itself in the court and presided 
over all the acts of royalty. To be sure the roughest of the 
courtiers became indignant at this; and the soldier Tavannes ex- 
claimed, " Whoever enters the court of kings a free man becomes 
a serf " ; but the majority of them quickly adjusted themselves to 
its requirements, and had but a single thought: to please him who 
was already taking the title of " Majesty." 

This social transformation produced important political con- 
sequences, also. The nobles ruined themselves in these sumptu- 
ous fêtes, and were on this account the more pronounced in 
their devotion to the king, who diverted and supported them. 
Formerly " France " was everywhere, from the provinces, where 
the feudal nobility reigned, to Paris, in which the monarch had 
his capital, but from this time on, France is the court, and the 
king incarnates and personifies the realm. The nobles themselves 
admitted this, when they said that " the kings had formerly been 
kings of the Franks, but they were no longer anything but the 
kings of serfs." 

5. The Châteaux. — The châteaux of the XVI century espe- 
cially indicate the elegance of the life of the nobles, and the old 
manor-houses of the Middle Ages likewise underwent a trans- 
formation in adapting themselves to more refined manners, and 
more elegant occupants in the new society. Large windows 
pierced the walls and allowed free access to air and sunshine; 
pavilions, parterres, and gardens were multiplied, while upon all 
the walls there was lavished a wealth of ornamentation, capricious 
in its details, in which was indiscriminately mingled the pointed 
with the Italian style. Side by side with these suggestions of the 
Gothic epoch appeared the Roman orders of architecture with 
their broad entablatures, their rounded arches, their rectangular 
doors and windows, and their dignified colonnades. As an ex- 



THE GREAT OFFICERS OF THE CROWN 379 

pression of this new conception, one of the Renaissance architects, 
disdaining the old Louvre and the Hôtel des Tournelles, had the 
old tower of Philip Augustus torn down. This had been the 
first of the royal palaces. " To destroy it," says Henri Martin, 
" was to destroy history itself ; and it was the demolition of the 
old feudal royalty by the monarchy of the Renaissance." In its 
place was erected a part of that magnificent edifice which, with 
justice, is distinguished as the most beautiful specimen of the 
French Renaissance architecture. 

Religious architecture at first remained more faithful to the 
traditions of the XV century, but many happy combinations were 
produced by a union of the pointed style and of the new Italian 
style, and later religious architecture also was carried in its turn 
upon the current and the XVI I century, particularly in the churches, 
adopted the Italian architecture. 

6. The Government under the Great Officers of the 
Crown. — In the XVI century the absolute monarchy did not yet 
have actual ministers. ** The king alone is the monarch," says 
Guy Coquille, " and there are no peers to his royal majesty." 
Nevertheless, he had counselors. There were the " counselors- 
born ": that is to say, the princes of the blood and peers. Others 
were " counselors-made ": they were chiefly the great officers of the 
crown. The Constable was the most important of all: ''he is 
above all the others, the king alone excepted," says Du Tillet. 
Commander-in-chief of the army, he had as the symbol of his 
power the naked sword which he bore before the prince at the 
coronation ceremony and in all the great pageants which had to 
do with royalty. He had a special jurisdiction, judging all crimes 
and offenses committed by soldiers, and his tribunal, the Con- 
stabulary, sat in a hall called the Marble Table. 

Next in order of precedence came the Admiral of France, who 
commanded the military and merchant marine, and had under his 
direction the courts of Admiralty. 

The Grand Master of France plaj^ed an important rôle in the 
XVI century, and his duties brought him constantly into contact 
with the king. He was responsible for the administration of the 
king's household, regulated the disputes which arose between the 
royal officers, and had the first place in all great ceremonies. 
What shows the importance of these functions is that they were 



38o SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FRANCE 

held in the XVI century by such great men as Anne of Mont- 
morency, and Francis and Henry of Guise. The Grand Master 
had under his orders the Grand Cook (Queux) of France, a 
Master of the Household responsible for the oversight of the 
kitchen, the Grand Butler whose jurisdiction extended over all 
wine shops and inns, and the Grand Master of the Pantrj^, who 
had jurisdiction over the bakers of Paris. 

The Grand Chambrier, successor to the Merovingian came- 
rariuSj had chiefly judicial duties: he had jurisdiction over the 
various guilds who furnished furniture, the haberdashers, the old 
furniture men, the shoemakers, the furriers, the skin-dressers, 
and the like. 

The Grand Chamberlain was responsible for the special service 
of the king's chamber. He had his place reserved behind the 
sovereign in all formal audiences, and, although his duties did 
not become important until after the suppression of the Grand 
Chambrier, they were performed by such nobles as the duke of 
Longueville, Francis of Guise, and Charles of Lorraine. The 
Grand Esquire had less political importance; he had oversight of 
the royal stables and the heralds-at-arms. Then came the inferior 
oflScers: the Grand Huntsman, the Grand Falconer, the Grand 
Master Inquisitor, and the Grand Reformer of Waters and 
Forests. 

Finally, the Chancellor was the head of the entire civil ad- 
ministration. He had for his special duty the guardianship of 
the royal seal, which, for a long time, he wore suspended around 
his neck. " Just as the Constable in the military state holds the 
first rank," says Pasquier, " the Chancellor is the head of the state 
of justice." He had the right of presiding over all courts of 
justice in the name of the king. He had the right, too, of appear- 
ing in all the royal councils, as is indicated by the title which he 
bore, Cancellarius et consiliarius specialis noster, and his office 
was subject neither to sale nor to hereditary possession. Desig- 
nated for election under Charles V, later nominated by the king, 
the Chancellor was appointed for life; but this condition was 
found to be embarrassing to the crown at times, and a way out 
of the difficulty was found by means of a subterfuge. The Chan- 
cellor might never lose his title, but his functions might be taken 
away from him and intrusted to a revocable Keeper of the 



THE COUNCILS 381 

Seals. Thus it was that I'Hospital, although he was dismissed, 
retained his title, but relinquished the guardianship of the seals to 
Birague. In the XVI century, the Chancellor had control over all 
judicial and financial matters. Later, these financial duties were 
handed over to a Superintendent of the Finances, who did not 
make his appearance until the time of Henry IV. 

By the side of these members of the Council appear the Secre- 
taries of State, and their history forms an important part of the 
monarchical administration. Philip the Fair first instituted three 
" secret " clerks responsible for signing all measures which related 
to the finances. Later their importance was increased in con- 
sequence of the creation of the bureaus over which they presided. 
The Secretary of Finances was an important office when the title 
belonged to Florimond Robertet under Charles VIII, Louis XII, 
and Francis I. Fleuranges said of him that he governed the entire 
realm, and he had complete charge of the affairs of France. These 
were the same Secretaries of State whose names appear in the 
middle of the XVI century, and who in the XVII century be- 
came the real ministers of the monarchy. 

7. The Councils. — The great officers of the crown, however, 
did not all of them necessarily take part in the King's Council 
or in the Great Council. The King's Council, established by 
Philip the Fair, had gradually become the principal machinery of 
the monarchical government; but toward the end of the XV 
century a series of measures taken by Louis XI, Charles VIII, and 
Louis XII, divided the King's Council into a Great Council and 
a Council of State, just as in the XIII century the King's Court 
had been divided into the King's Council and Parlement. 

The Great Council relieved the King's Council of all its judicial 
responsibilities. It was fixed at Paris, and judged cases concerning 
bishoprics and other ecclesiastical benefices within the gift of the 
king, the affairs of the Order of Cluny, matters which were called 
up by the Parlement of Paris, conflicts between the Parlement and 
the presidents, civil and criminal aft"airs brought before it by a 
decree of the King's Council, contrary decrees rendered by the 
Parlement, and like matters. 

As for the Council of State, it remained attached to the king's 
person, followed him everywhere, and was the center and chief 
organ of his power and administration. The king did nothing 



382 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FRANCE 

except with it and through it, but it was far from being regu- 
larly organized at this time. Its membership, a variable number, 
consisted of the Chancellor and the Constable, the higher digni- 
taries of the Church, the princes of the blood, the men of the 
sword, ambassadors, and secretaries of state. Besides these two 
Councils, Francis I organized in 1526 what was variously called 
the Council from on High (Conseil d'en Haut), Council of 
Affairs, or simply Affairs, and made it consist of a certain num- 
ber of great personages who discussed the question of general 
policy. 

8. The Governors and Intendants. — Francis I insisted upon 
having the royal power respected in the provinces, and the bailiffs 
and the seneschals saw new functionaries rising at their side, the 
governors. They were established first in the frontier provinces, 
then in those of the interior. The governor was responsible for the 
command of the armed force of the province. He had below him 
all the other agents of the king, the bailiffs, the seneschals, and the 
provosts. He represented the king before the provincial Parle- 
ments, saw that their decisions were executed, presided over the 
provincial assemblies, and had around him a veritable court. 
To make it impossible for these governors to renew the usurpations 
of the counts and the dukes of the Carolingian epoch, the office 
of governor was made revocable. In 1542 Francis I suspended 
by an ordinance the powers of all the governors, showing in this 
way that he would not have in the realm more than one master, 
or more than one will. 

But by the side of the governors there began to appear func- 
tionaries who were one day to be their rivals: the intendants. 
It has for a long time been asserted that the intendants were 
created in 1635 by Richelieu, but it has been recently demon- 
strated that they existed before that date. Intendants are to be 
noticed during the reign of Henry II in 1553 without any one 
being able to say that even they are really the first, and certain 
provinces of central France present an uninterrupted series of 
intendants all through the last part of the XVI century. '' Al- 
ways," says Hanotaux, " I have found the development of their 
institution united with the progress of the royal authority." 
These intendants of justice and public order, who have been 
compared to the prefects of modern France, were magistrates re- 



THE PARLEMENT 383 

sponsible for making the action of the royal power universally 
felt. Suppressed by the Estates of Blois, they reappeared under 
Henry IV, and rise with the monarchy of which they became a 
formidable instrument. 

9. The Estates General. — The monarchy, having become thus 
absolute, no longer had need for calling together the Estates 
General, and it fell into decay by the end of the XVI century. 
Louis XII summoned it but once at Tours, in 1506; Francis I, 
in spite of the great levies of men and of money which he made 
during his reign, did not convoke it a single time. He preferred 
to summon assemblies of notables, w^hom he had less reason to 
distrust. Thus, in 1526, he called together the assembly of 
Cognac, which declared Burgundy inalienable. In 1527 he con- 
voked at Paris a new assembly, which protested against the treaty 
of Madrid. Henry II continued the policy of his father. In 
1558 after the disaster of Saint-Quentin, he was compelled, in 
order to obtain subsidies, to call together an assembly of the 
Estates General at Paris, but it contained a great number of 
deputies chosen directly by the king, and as a result was devoted 
to his cause. The Estates General did not resume its importance 
until the crown had been again weakened by the civil wars. 

10. The Parlement. — In the midst of this universal submission, 
did the Parlements offer any resistance to the invading absolutism 
of the monarchy? The Parlement of Paris certainly seemed to 
join political attributes to its judicial responsibilities. It had to 
register the ordinances elaborated in the Council and could address 
remonstrances to the king when his acts appeared to it contrary 
to the interest of the nation; but the absolute monarchy refused 
to tolerate any resistance of this kind to its will. The magistrates 
themselves, while presenting each day remonstrances to the royal 
edicts, declared plainly that the king might hold them null and 
void. " We do not wish, Sire," said President Gaillard, " to call 
into question or to dispute your power. That would be a kind 
of sacrilege, and we very well know that you are above the laws, 
and that the laws and ordinances cannot constrain you." 

Nevertheless, the Parlement held to the prerogatives which it 
enjoyed from that time on. In 15 16 the king issued an edict upon 
the chase, which forbade any one living near the royal forests to 
have in his possession either implements of the chase or firearms. 



384 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FRANCE 

Parlement addressed energetic remonstrances to him and resisted 
for a year, but finally had to register the edict and so made it a 
law. The contention was even more vigorous upon the subject 
of the Concordat. More attached to the traditions of the Gallican 
Church than to the monarchy even, the magistrates dared to 
demand the maintenance of the Pragmatic Sanction, and for six 
months resisted the royal bidding, but when the deputies of Parle- 
ment came to protest anew in the presence of Francis I at Amboise, 
the king gruffly responded that he " did not want a Council of 
Venice." He ordered them to depart at once, and as they alleged 
an overflow of the Loire as an excuse for delay, he exclaimed, 
" If tomorrow morning, before six o'clock, they are not out of 
Amboise, I will have them seized by my archers and cast into a 
dungeon for six months." 

IL The Presidencies, and the Sale of Offices. — In the 
administration of justice, great progress was made. The royal 
edicts limited the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical tribunals, ordered 
the curés of each parish to keep the registers of the civil state, 
and decreed that the French language should replace the Latin in 
the courts. They were more and more inspired with the principles 
of Roman Law, which the jurisconsults, Cujas and Alciat, taught 
in the school of Bourges, and a codification of the provincial laws 
was completed in the reign of Charles IX. 

Upon the death of Henry II, France numbered eight Parle- 
ments: those of Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Dijon, 
Rouen, Aix, and Rennes. These judicial centers were encumbered 
with more matters than they were able to handle, and, in order to 
help them, Henry II granted to a certain number of tribunals of 
the bailiwicks, called presidencies, the right of judging civil cases 
in a last resort, when the sum in dispute was not more than two 
hundred and fifty livres, or ten livres of income, and in criminal 
cases, acts of brigandage, unlawful entry, revolts, and the crime 
of issuing false money. 

In order to recruit the personnel of the judiciary, a choice had 
to be made between an elective system and a system of purchas- 
ing the oflice. The second one prevailed. A judicial office could be 
acquired for a sum of money, and, from that time forward, became 
the actual property of the purchaser. If, on the one hand, the per- 
son who acquired the office became in this way relatively inde- 



THE CONCORDAT OF 1516 385 

pendent of the royal power, on the other hand he was too easily 
tempted to reimburse himself from those who appeared before 
him for the considerable sum of money which the office had cost 
him. Hotman accuses the magistrates of buying justice and selling 
it at retail as butchers cut an ox to pieces in order to expose it for 
sale. Besides this, the kings were naturally given to multiplying 
financial and judicial offices which were such a satisfactory source 
of income to the treasury, and this was a source of abuse w^hich 
lasted as long as the ancient régime. 

12. The Concordat of 1516.— It will be remembered that 
Charles VII had given the Gallican Church a certain status by 
means of the Pragmatic Sanction (1438). Revoked by Louis XI, 
it had been re-established with some limitations by the ordinance 
of Blois (1499). This celebrated act had bestowed upon the 
Gallican Church a relatively large amount of independence, 
whether viewed from the standpoint of the king, or from the 
standpoint of the Court of Rome. The popes recognized a 
serious danger here, and made every effort to abolish '' this 
pernicious heresy." To this end Leo X offered to Francis I a 
bargain which the king of France accepted: this was the Con- 
cordat of 15 16. 

By it the Pragmatic Sanction was abolished and the pope was 
permitted to collect the annates, but he lost the reservations and 
the expectative graces. He preserved appeals to the Court of 
Rome for the major cases in the ecclesiastical tribunals, but he 
promised to have these appeals tried in France. In return for 
these pecuniary advantages, he recognized the king's right to 
make nominations to all benefices. This was not an act of weak- 
ness, as has been asserted, but an act of daring on the part of the 
crown. Francis I, according to Guizot, *' signed the most im- 
portant of the acts of alliance concluded between the Papacy and 
the French crown for the mutual service of absolute power." It 
placed entirely in the hands of the king the French clergy, whose 
members became actual royal functionaries ; it transformed the 
Church by making of it a monarchical institution, and it granted 
to the king a force, a means of wealth, and a considerable economic 
power. 

If the court applauded this stroke of policy which placed such 
a vast amount of revenue under the king's control, the Clergy, 



386 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FRANCE 

the Parlement, and the University strenuously objected to it m a 
storm of protests, sermons, and remonstrances. 

13. The Opposition to the Absolute Monarchy. — It must 
be made clear, however, that elsewhere this establishment of ab- 
solutism did not take place without strong opposition. In the 
face of those writers who demonstrated the superiority of the 
monarchy over all other forms of government, many contrary 
theories appeared. The new spirit of the Renaissance dictated to 
La Boetie that ardent protest against tyranny which he entitled 
the Discourse upon Voluntary Servitude. 

'' Why," the author demanded in his energetic invective, 
" should millions of men supinely accept the will of a single man, 
and oftentimes the most effeminate and cowardly of the whole 
nation? Has not nature given liberty to all living beings? Men 
are cowards, and * no bird is more easily taken by the fowler than 
are the people.' " '* The prince," he says, " understands how to 
dazzle his subjects with his fleur-de-lis, his pompous divinity, his 
royal banner, and he also understands the art of creating a power- 
ful party by heaping favors upon his famished courtiers." Al- 
though not published until 1572, this bold pamphlet was composed 
about 1546, at a time when the yoke of Henry II was making itself 
heavily felt. 

The Reformation, as well, did not fail to force a breach in the 
monarchical system of Grassaille and of Ferrault, for the royal 
authority ceased to be legitimate in the eyes of those whom it 
persecuted. In his treatise on Political Powerj an English bishop 
who was a refugee at Strasburg, John Poynet, advanced the posi- 
tion that it is allowable under certain circumstances to put kings 
to death. The poet. Du Bartas, wrote his Judith, in which the 
Catholics saw a defense of regicide, and innumerable pamphlets 
were almost immediately directed against the royal power, from 
the Marvelous Discourse upon the Life, Actions, and Deportment 
of Queen Catharine, to the Epistles sent to the Tiger of 
France. 

Political satire, held well in check by Francis I, was allowed 
freer scope under Henry II, and the reign of the favorites and the 
mistresses, the humbled Parlement, the suppressed Estates General 
and the destinies of the people abandoned to the caprices of the 
master aroused more than one bitter reflection. Certain mal- 



THE STATE OF THE ARMY 387 

contents, indeed, even took council upon several occasions for 
the purpose of bringing the king to account. 

14. The Finances of the Realm. — The principle of mo- 
narchical absolutism appeared also in the administration of the 
finances. The necessities of a complicated administration, the 
interminable wars, the growing expenses of the court and the 
lavishness of the king, demanded considerable sums of money to 
meet these disbursements, and in order to make some headway 
against these expenses the crown was obliged to find new resources. 
The old taxes were increased without measure. Francis I raised 
the taille from seven to sixteen million of livres tournois, and 
increased the gabelle and the aides. He sold a great number of 
offices, compelled the paj^ment of a tenth from the Clergy, and 
established extraordinary imposts. The king even established the 
royal lottery, but in spite of all these expedients the monarchical 
budget showed a deficit at the end of his reign. 

He maintained the financial organization of Charles VH, but 
introduced into it important modifications. Among these was the 
creation of a central depository called the Treasury {Epargne), 
to which was to be returned all the income from the domain and 
from the various taxes. The king's treasury and the treasury of 
the State from this time on become confused. The Treasurer of 
the Epargne was responsible for establishing every month a balance 
between the receipts and the expenses. There were two Con- 
trollers General for superintending his administration, and Re- 
ceivers General, at first four, and then sixteen, looked after col- 
lecting as levies, later called the generalities, the income from all 
the taxes. Henceforth all the money of the kingdom was placed 
at the disposal of the king. No change was made in the system of 
the courts of finance, which were controlled by the Chamber of 
Accounts, so far as the general lists were concerned, by the Court 
of Aids, for the tailles and the aides, and by the Parlement, for 
what concerned the domain. 

15. The State of the Army. The Cavalry. — The army was 
necessarily an absorbing interest of the absolute monarchy. Cav- 
alry still formed the chief strength of the French forces. There 
were, at first, compagnies d'ordonnance, consisting of from twenty- 
five to one hundred men-at-arms, each followed by two archers 
and a swordsman (coutilier). All these men-at-arms were nobles, 



388 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FRANCE 

and the admission into one of these companies of itself conferred 
the title of nobility. This great mass of men covered with steel, 
well mounted, and bound together by the sentiment of knightly 
honor, was irresistible when it launched itself at a gallop with 
lances at rest. 

Charles VIII had but six of these companies for his famous 
charge at Fornova; Conde needed only three to scatter the twenty 
thousand Parisians at Saint-Denis in 1567. The troopers were 
proud of their long lances and freely said that wood was the 
weapon of France. Inasmuch as the command of these companies 
was given only to the greatest nobles, or to the most experienced 
leaders, it was held in great honor, and in order to win to France 
the alliance of Alexander VI, Louis XII gave his son, Caesar 
Borgia, one of his companies of one hundred men-at-arms. 

Following them came the archers, now mounted and called, 
from this time on, the light horse, and in number about equal 
to the companies of the men-at-arms. They wore the corselet, 
the helmet called the hourguignote, and were equipped with the 
demi-lance and the pistolet. There were also, from the end of 
the year 1558, dragoons, who fought both on foot and on horse- 
back; the estradiols recruited in Dalmatia and in Albania; the 
ritters, horsemen, flanked by the lanzknechts and pikemen on foot, 
levied in Germany. 

16. The Infantry. — A great transformation was taking place in 
the art of war, however, since men were just beginning to realize 
that infantry is the real strength of armies. The franc-archers 
continued to exist, but it was hardly possible to make use of that 
kind of a national guard. Generally mercenaries were employed, 
who voluntarily enlisted, chiefly in the valleys of the Lot, the 
Dordogne, and the Garonne, and were divided into " bands." 
Brantôme has drawn a striking picture of this particular in- 
fantry: ''Displaying more evidence of rascality than of clean- 
liness, they wore full-length shirts with long sleeves, and like the 
Moors or the Bohemians of olden times, they wore their clothes 
for two or three months without changing them; their costumes 
fully revealed their shaggy, hairy breasts, and they wore parti- 
colored hose, slashed and rent, through which the flesh of their 
thighs was plainly displaj^ed. Others, with more regard for clean- 
liness, had such great quantities of taffeta that they doubled it 



THE ARTILLERY 389 

and called the covering " puffed hose " ; the greater part of them 
were jail-birds, lying scoundrels who had escaped from justice, 
many of whom were branded on their shoulders with the fîeur- 
de-lisj and had cropped ears, which they concealed by means of 
long matted hair and horrible beards, worn as much for the 
sake of concealment as to show themselves frightful to their 
enemies." 

Commanded by illustrious chiefs, these bands performed 
prodigies during the Italian wars. Some of these adventurers were 
able to rise rapidly, even to the highest rank of the army. Such, 
for example, was the history of the famous captain, Paulin, who 
ran away one fine day in Dauphiny from his peasant cottage, 
served at first as a soldier's servant, carried an arquebus, then be- 
came successively baron of Lagarde, marquis of Bregancon, king's 
lieutenant in Provence, captain general of his armies upon the 
sea in the Levant, which conquered Corsica, attacked Genoa, and 
finally massacred the Waldenses. 

Francis I understood the necessity of having a regularly or- 
ganized national infantry, however, and he created seven legions, 
each composed of six thousand men. Each legion consisted of six 
companies, commanded by a captain, and subdivided into cohorts 
and centuries, after the ancient Roman fashion. The legion was 
composed of commoners levied in the same province. They were 
exempted from the taille, and were promised a ring of gold for 
every brilliant action. At the head of these legions was a 
colonel-general of infantry. Unfortunately, this attempt did not 
succeed. The legions were too rapidly improvised, and accord- 
ing to a popular saying, " they were the worst disciplined troops 
in the world." It became necessary to return to the system of 
bands, which Henry II transformed into regiments. All the 
contemporary writers are in agreement as to the brilliant condi- 
tion of the French army under Henry II; but a decline almost 
immediately set in with the religious wars. 

17. The Artillery. — ^Artillery began to attain perfection in 
France in the XVI century, thanks especially to the great masters, 
Galiot de Génouillac and John of Estrees. Iron cannon gave 
place to bronze cannon mounted on gun-carriages. Often of 
enormous size, weighing sometimes fifty-three hundred pounds, 
an immense number of horses and carts was necessary to transport 



390 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FRANCE 

this clumsy material. The expense of transporting it was also 
considerable. A contemporary made a calculation that at the 
siege of Dampviller and of Ivoy in 1552, every cannon shot cost 
from two to three hundred crowns. Another writer of the reign 
of Henry II estimated that in order to maintain and transport 
forty-four huge pieces of artillery, it required three hundred and 
thirteen men, three hundred and twenty-seven army wagons, and 
one thousand, nine hundred and fiftj^-six horses. The Book of 
the Cannonier, printed in 1 56 1, gives an idea of the organiza- 
tion of this important service. At the head of the artillery was 
a Grand Master who received six thousand livres pay, and 
had under his command fifty commissioners scattered through 
the various provinces. 

The perfecting of artillery inevitably led to a transformation 
in the system of fortification, inasmuch as the science of engi- 
neering had to take account of artillery. High walls and power- 
ful towers were given up ; grassy slopes and rounded bastions 
were multiplied, and recourse was had to mines. 

18. The Marine. — As he was compelled to contend with 
the English on the Atlantic and against the Spanish on the 
Mediterranean, Francis I had a substantial military marine. The 
Mediterranean squadron which was commanded by the head of 
the fleet, or the Admiral of the Levant, was composed of galleys 
driven by the oars of galley-slaves chained to their places. The 
Atlantic squadron, commanded by the Admiral of the Western 
Ocean {Ponant), consisted of vessels furnished with both sails and 
oars, and to control this area, the king created in 1537 the port 
Franciscopolis which later became Havre. 

France was now directing her attention toward distant seas, 
the dominion over which Spain and Portugal were claiming to 
share. According to legend, Normans had preceded Christopher 
Columbus in America, and Vasco da Gama in the Indian Ocean. 
The Dieppe captain, John Cousins, according to these accounts, 
left Dieppe in 1488, landed in Brazil, and, following the equa- 
torial currents, had crossed the southern Atlantic, discovered Cape 
Agulhas, and returned to France by the west coast of Africa. 
Three years later he had landed in the Indies and had accom- 
plished alone a task which later immortalized two of the greatest 
discoverers of the XV century. Unfortunately, this legend does 



MATERIAL PROSPERITY OF FRANCE 391 

not seem to have the support of serious evidence. The man w^ho 
really seems to have opened up the New World to French com- 
merce is the shipowner, Ango, who sent bold pilots toward Terra- 
nova, and toward Brazil. The Norman Paulmier de Gonne- 
ville rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1503; Denis of Ron- 
fleur followed him there in 1504; in 1508 Thomas Aubert founded 
the first French fisheries in New^foundland, and during the 
reign of Louis XII, French navigators opened up commercial rela- 
tions with Brazil. In 1526 Verazzano, at the command of 
Francis I, explored the coast of America and took possession of 
Newfoundland. In 1534, Jacques Cartier, having asked Admiral 
Cabot's authorit}^ to take up his unfinished labor, sailed from 
Saint Malo with two vessels. He explored Labrador and New 
Brunswick, discovered the mouth of a gigantic river which was 
to be called the St. Lawrence, and ascended it as far as the 
village of Hochelega, where Montreal now stands. A Picard 
nobleman, John de la Roque, sire of Roberval, received the title 
of lieutenant-general in the new lands of Canada, and unsuccess- 
fully sought to find the northwest passage. Later on Admiral 
Gaspard Coligny gave new impetus to maritime commerce, and 
attempted to found a colony in Brazil, but failed in consequence 
of the resistance of the Portuguese. After 1568 the government 
lost almost entirely its interest in colonization, and the crown, 
taken up with its domestic or European ambitions, accorded to the 
discoveries and to distant enterprises only distracted and inter- 
mittent attention. 

19. The Material Prosperity of France. — In the same de- 
gree that the royal authority was more definitely organized, the 
prosperity of France increased. The luxury of the Valois court 
eclipsed that of the Italian courts, and even dazzled the Venetian 
ambassadors. The example of the court was followed by all classes 
throughout the nation. The merchant was no longer content 
with " a robe of fine black cloth, trimmed with damask," while 
the townsman held in contempt his seree clothing, and substituted 
for it garments of silk and velvet. " The burghers of the towns 
w^ant to dress after the fashion of nobles, the aristocrats as sump- 
tuously as princes, and villagers in the same style as the burghers 
of the towns." 

Thanks to the good order which the royal government assured 



392 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FRANCE 

at the time of the formation of French territorial unity, when 
the calamities of war, which were frequently the curse of the 
provinces, were transferred to the frontiers, the population reached 
the number of sixteen millions of people, agriculture was revived, 
and wealth spread from the cities to the country. The peasant, 
better protected against the arbitrary will of his lord, and against 
the exactions of the soldiery, was becoming more familiar with 
his rights and duties, which the codification of the local customs 
had fixed, and supported with greater ease the constantly increasing 
weight of the tailles; he had more liberty, his clothing was less 
coarse, his home was happier, and his food was better and more 
abundant. He experienced something of that well-being of which 
France had caught a momentary glimpse in the opening years of 
the XIV century, just before the Hundred Years' War. 

If the townspeople had witnessed the disappearance of a good 
part of their municipal franchises, they were on the other hand 
enriched by commerce and industry; they won in security and in- 
fluence what they had lost in liberty, and they were frequently 
able to purchase with ready money titles of nobility as well as 
financial and judicial offices. It is these burghers who, under the 
name of councilors of state, secretaries of the king, members of 
the court, treasurers and receivers, administered and governed the 
kingdom. It was they who could be seen, as Claude de Seyssel 
says, '' buying the inheritances and the lordships of those barons 
and noblemen who had been reduced to such poverty that they 
were no longer able to support the estate of nobility." The 
peasant forgave the crown for his increased burden of taxes be- 
cause he received in return far greater security; the burgher en- 
dured the loss of his municipal franchise since he was given a 
wider access to public office ; and the clergy was compensated for 
its vanished independence by an assured and tranquil enjoyment 
of its revenues. 

The donjons of the Middle Ages gave place to artistic châteaux, 
in which the prodigal genius of the Renaissance displayed all its 
caprices. For the royal residences of Chambord, Anet, or Fon- 
tainebleau, there were required marbles of varied and graceful 
forms, works of marqueterie, mosaics of Italian manufacture, and 
porcelains with designs enameled on them from the hands of 
French and Italian masters. In the XIV century the furniture of 



BERNARD PALISSY 393 

a. queen of France was estimated at seventeen thousand livres; in 
1556 the account of the expenses of the king's household alone was 
one hundred and fourteen thousand livres. If a writer of the 
XV century be taken, say the Burgher of Paris for example, he 
will show the country ruined, the towns sacked by the soldiery, 
civil war a regular condition, the shops deserted, the tradespeople 
keeping guard on the ramparts, and the plague decimating the 
population until the kingdom is upon the point of destruction. If, 
on the other hand, for the XVI century the History of Louis XII 
by Claude de Seyssel be followed, there appear flourishing towns 
overflowing with population, the countryside tranquil, commerce 
prosperous, industry active, the army well disciplined, and wealth 
generally distributed. 

20. Bernard Palissy (1510-1589).— France at this time de- 
veloped a remarkable art which partook at the same time of 
painting, sculpture, and enamel. This was the celebrated faïence 
work of Oiron. Hélène of Hangest founded this famous school 
at the Château of Oiron, near Thouars, in 1529. Many ceramists 
labored there, but the name of François Charpentier alone has 
survived. For forty years the artists of Oiron produced this 
faïence work, which, by its predominant ivory tone, the delicacy, 
finish, and lightness of its decoration, and the modeling of its 
sculptured parts, constituted an achievement quite without prece- 
dent. Then Bernard Palissy came. 

Born in a village in the neighborhood of Agen, he be- 
longed to a poor family who had him taught to read and 
write. Apprenticed to a stained-glass maker, he made a tour of 
France, then settled down and married at Saintes, where, while 
working in glass, he also carried on the duties of a surveyor. 
In the midst of these multiplied duties, which brought him, 
nevertheless, a certain amount of ease, he was seized with the 
desire to discover and to make practical what he called the '' art 
of earthwork." He has told us himself, in his original stjde, at 
the price of what suffering and at what sacrifice he pursued for 
sixteen years his investigations into the composition of enamels. 
Reduced finally to the most abject poverty, the object of the re- 
proaches of his wife and the tears of his children, he sold almost 
his last articles of clothing, and burned his last piece of furniture 
in order to fire his furnace. He ended in triumph, and succeeded 



394 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FRANCE 

in discovering the " rustic pottery," which commanded universal 
admiration. Pursued as a Huguenot, he was set at liberty, thanks 
to the intervention of Montmorency. For a quarter of a century, 
in spite of the rigidity of his principles, his simple title of " in- 
ventor of the rustic pottery to the king " was enough to save 
him from the bloody rigors of the Catholics. Permitted to install 
Jiis workshop and his ovens in the palace of the Tuileries, he orna- 
mented with his masterpieces the châteaux of Ecouen, Saint- 
Germain, and Auch. 

He was also a pioneer as a scientist, and in his Essays, the 
result of his study of the formation of the soil and of fossil 
shells, he laid the foundation of geology. The first cabinet of 
natural history which had existed in France up to that time he 
formed, and showed the means of purifying water and improving 
the soil. Persecuted by the League, he was cast into the Bastile, 
where he died at the age of eighty. 

This humble artist, this " earthenware potter," as he called 
himself, was really a great genius. Under his hand rough clay 
was transformed, and his enameled plates in bold relief, with their 
brilliant colors, in which fish swam and crawfish or serpents 
crawled amid flowers and ferns, must be counted among the 
masterpieces of the XVI century. 

2L Commerce. — France had its share in the great economic 
revolution also which took place in the XVI century. Its com- 
merce followed the same upward progress which the neighboring 
nations, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, had experienced, since one of 
the principal results of the alteration in the mode of life was to 
give to outside commerce an activity unknown to preceding cen- 
turies. Foreign countries were drawn upon for objects of art 
and luxury which had become indispensable to the richer classes. 
From Italy came silks, embroideries, and a thousand articles of 
dress; from Flanders, fine fabrics, laces, and tapestries; and from 
Spain, arms, armor, and leather. Lyons received the Italian mer- 
chandise which came to it by way of Mont Genèvre and the 
Petit Saint Bernard, and the trade of the fairs was estimated at 
more than two million crowns of gold. 

The French kings exerted themselves to assure new outlets to 
the national industries by signing treaties with foreign Powers, and 
in the system of tariffs they did not aim to secure a profit for the 



INDUSTRY 395 

treasury, but rather to afford protection to the national interests. 
At that time the tolls were the most annoying hindrance to in- 
ternal commerce. A case of merchandise transported from Paris 
to Rouen and destined for England, for instance, would have to 
pay a customs tax at Paris, sixteen tolls from Sèvres to Rouen 
bridge, and satisfy on the way the rights of the vicomte, of high 
passage, of pilotage, etc. 

Royalty attempted to limit, or at least to regulate, these tolls. 
Its efforts were directed toward making easier navigation upon 
the rivers and streams. Henry II himself was interested in giving 
practical application to the ideas of the Provençal, Adam of 
Craponne, who wished to connect the Mediterranean basin with 
the waters of the Loire and of the Garonne, to join Aix with the 
pool of Berry, and to open up communication between the Saône 
and the Loire. The plan was approved and the work begun, but 
the death of the king put a stop to it, and it was not resumed 
until the XVIII century. Francis I and Cardinal Tournon had 
the first French bank founded at Paris. 

At the same time that internal commerce was thus, little by 
little, freeing itself from the restriction of the Middle Ages, a still 
more profound revolution w^as taking place in the traditions of 
maritime commerce. France now turned to the New World, 
and took a remarkable place among seafaring and commercial 
people. 

22. Industry. — The development of commerce stimulated the 
development of national industry. As in the Middle Ages, the 
greater part of the merchants and workmen were organized into 
corporations, which enjoyed a monopoly restricted to a certain 
quarter or to the limits of a city, and these corporations still 
preserved their regulations and ancient hierarchy. Francis I made 
a special effort to develop in France those artistic industries which 
had already made the prosperity and glory of Italy. The silk fac- 
tories of Tours took on a condition of such prosperity as to disturb 
the Venetian ambassadors; in 1546 they numbered eight thousand 
workmen. Those of Lyons, which had languished since the time 
of Louis XI, revived under Francis I, and numbered some twelve 
thousand workmen in 1554. The Italian faience-ware met with 
competition in Normandy, and the enameled potteries of Maclou 
indicated the subsequent glory of the factory of Rouen. Thç 



396 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FRANCE 

laces of Velay competed with those of Flanders and Venice. 
Francis I summoned to Fontainebleau the master Flemish and 
Italian weavers, created a royal manufactory for tapestry for 
which Primatico and Giulio Romano furnished the patterns, and 
which were directed, under Henry II, by Philibert of Orme. 

French printing definitely won a place by the side of that of 
Venice. Paris numbered eight hundred publishing houses, Lyons 
almost as many; to the Manutians of Venice and to the Proben 
of Basel, France was able to add that printer dynasty of the 
Estienne, which equaled the Swiss and the Venetians in the 
perfection of their type, and surpassed them in erudition. 

The effort which the monarchy made to free the country from 
the tribute which it was paying to foreign industries, produced 
as its result a timid and incomplete revolution in the customs 
system. Certain laws were directed against foreign cloth, and 
especially against gold and silver stuffs; the importation of spices 
was forbidden except when they came directly from the country 
of their production, or from the entrepôts of Portugal, Italy, and 
the Orient. Thus there was born in France the protective 
régime. 

In a word, if French royalty in the XVI century had made 
immense progress, the nation had grown great with it. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE (15 15-1598) 

1. The Reformation Under Francis I. — The reign of 
Francis I witnessed the beginnings of the Reformation in France. 
In the University of Paris and among the clergy of France the 
most eminent minds early in the XV century, as for example Ger- 
son and Ailly at the Council of Constance, had been the warmest 
advocates of reform in the Church. To their voices were joined 
those of the humanists, who desired to enfranchise the human 
mind from the yoke of scholasticism and who reproached the 
clerg}^ for their intolerance. Outside these intellectual circles, 
the aristocracy had a special interest in supporting the new ideas. 
They saw the nobility of England and of Germany made wealthy 
by the vast territories which had been confiscated from the Catholic 
Church, and dreamed of obtaining like advantages by resuming in 
a period of general confusion their old independence. The French 
Reformation, therefore, moved along these three lines : ( i ) the 
desire for a reformation in the Church; (2) the efforts in behalf 
of intellectual emancipation; (3) and the interested aspirations 
of the nobility. 

The doctrines of Luther had reached France quite early; but, 
severely condemned by the Sorbonne and the Parlements in 1521, 
they obtained a small number of converts only. Yet almost at 
once a reform movement exclusively national was started by cer- 
tain scholarly writers, and William Briconnet, the brilliant bishop 
of Meaux, gathered around him a group of those who supported 
the new movement, notably Lefèvre of Etaples, William Farrel, 
and Gérard Rousell. From this circle proceeded the first martyrs 
of the French Reformation: Leclerc, who was burned at Metz, 
and Pavanes, who was executed at Paris. 

Very soon the doctrines of Lefèvre united with those of Luther 
and of Zwingli. Then the movement found its remarkable in- 

397 



398 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

tellectual expression in The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 
by John Calvin, and the Reformation became firmly established in 
France. 

Francis I regarded the propagation of the new ideas with in- 
difference at first, and tolerated the reformers out of regard 
for his sister, Marguerite, who protected them openly. He mod- 
erated the zeal of the Sorbonne, and invited the Lutheran Melanch- 
thon and the ironical Erasmus to come to Paris and give instruc- 
tion; but, influenced by the excesses of the Anabaptists of Ger- 
many and by the intemperate actions of the reformers who pro- 
faned the churches, he immediately issued severe decrees against 
the growing heresy. As a result numerous executions took place 
in Paris. The king, nevertheless, was obliged to keep on good 
terms with his Lutheran allies of Germany, and from this cir- 
cumstance may be explained the constant changes in his religious 
policy. At times, he showed himself full of tolerance, as when, 
for example, he published the liberal edict of Coucy. At other 
times, he ordered new severities against the reformers, among 
them the celebrated decree against the Waldenses. 

The name Waldenses is applied to certain gentle-mannered 
sectaries holding evangelical ideas who had sought refuge for 
three hundred years in the mountains of Provence and had kept 
in touch with the partisans of the Reformation. At the request 
of the tribunal judge Oppède, and of the Advocate General, 
Guerin, the Parlements of Aix commanded the destruction of their 
villages. The baron of Lagarde assembled troops, sacked Mérin- 
dol and Cabrières, and massacred several thousand persons in 
1545. Francis I, however, openly expressed his indignation at 
the excesses committed in his name, and before his death went 
so far as to order his son to punish them. 

2. The Reformation Under Henry II.— " With Henry 
II," says Forneron, "history enters upon a new epoch; the 
Reformation, which had been vaguely disturbing under Francis 
I, now became a revolution." Calvin's doctrine spread over 
France with an astonishing rapidity, while at the same time, the 
number, the unity of faith, and the severe discipline of the 
French reformers, began to give them a position of importance in 
the state. Bishops Spifame and Melfi became reformed ministers; 
the archbishop of Aix, Saint Roman, was made the captain of a 



THE REIGN OF FRANCIS II 399 

company of Huguenots, while, to the scandal of Catholics, Car- 
dinal Odet of Châtillon married Elizabeth Hauteville and in- 
stalled himself with her in the episcopal palace of Beauvais. For 
this reason Henry II, inspired by the Guises, the leaders of the 
Catholic party, took the most severe measures for the repression 
of heresy. The edicts of Paris, of Fontainebleau, and of Château- 
briant subjected the adherents of reform to the secular and 
ecclesiastical tribunals. A chambre ardente multiplied executions. 
Open-air preaching was forbidden, and a vigorous edict, that 
of Ecouen in 1559, pronounced the death penalty against all 
heretics. In spite of all this, the cardinal of Lorraine could 
not be induced to give France over to the rule of the Inquisition. 

Notwithstanding these severities, the number of the reformers 
rapidly increased. The Parlement of Paris even went so far as to 
declare to the king that fire served no purpose at all, and that, 
from now on, the only thing which would be of any force was 
a purification of doctrine and the reformed lives of the clergy. 
Inasmuch as the magistrates of Tournelle had refused to register 
the edict of Ecouen, Henry II himself struck a severe blow at the 
reformers in the arrest of two counselors of the Parlement, Du 
Faur and Anne du Bourg, who had ventured to criticize in his 
presence the corruption of the court. Du Faur retracted, but 
Du Bourg proudly maintained the Protestant faith and cour- 
ageously marched to execution at the beginning of the reign of 
Francis IL 

3. The Reign of Francis II (1559-1560).— At the death of 
Henry II, his eldest son, Francis II, was only fifteen and one- 
half years old. He was a frail, scrofulous youth, of feeble char- 
acter and a sluggish mind. He had married a niece of the Guises, 
the beautiful and clever Mary Stuart, but she was completely 
under the control of her uncles; Francis, the duke of Guise, w^ho 
was virtually minister of war, and the cardinal of Lorraine, his 
brother, who assumed direction of justice and finance. Francis of 
Guise bore himself like an actual sovereign, with his haughty grace, 
his good humor, his ease of manner, and his somewhat theatrical 
attitudes. He rallied to his cause the majority of the generals, the 
old marshal of Brissac, the turbulent Saint André, Tavannes, the 
best chief of cavalry, and Monluc, who was adored by the Gascons. 

Opposed to the party of the Guises, however, there had already 



400 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

arisen that of the Bourbons, whose leaders were Antoine de 
Bourbon, King of Navarre, Charles, Cardinal of Bourbon, and 
Louis, Prince of Conde. Antoine de Bourbon's wife, Jeanne 
d'Albret, was an ardent Calvinist. The Bourbons thus became 
the leaders of the Protestants, in opposition to the Catholic party 
who obeyed the Guises. Around them were ranged the Châtillons: 
Odet, the eldest, formerly bishop of Beauvais; Gaspard of 
Châtillon, Count of Coligny, who became the hero of Calvinism; 
and Francis of Châtillon, Sire d'Andelot, one of the best captains 
of the time. 

4. The Conspiracy of Amboise Against Francis II. — 
The insolent control exercised by the Guises immediately aroused 
profound discontent, and to the malcontents, who were indignant 
at the favors lavished upon a foreign family, were joined the 
reformers who were just then beginning to be called " Hugue- 
nots." A plot, at the head of which was a Perigord adventurer, 
Sieur de la Renaudie, was forthwith organized for the purpose of 
taking the government out of the hands of the Guises and of call- 
ing together the Estates General. The queen of England was 
believed to favor the rebels, while Catharine de' Medici made no 
effort to put a stop to the attempt. Michael de I'Hospital further 
seems to have known about it, and Conde was the " silent captain " 
of the enterprise. La Renaudie assembled a band of determined 
men in the forest which surrounded the Château of Amboise, 
where the court was then residing; but the Guises, forewarned, 
concentrated their troops at Amboise and dispersed the bands of 
La Renaudie, who was killed. No pity was shown to the sur- 
vivors, and twelve hundred of the conspirators were executed. 
For a long time afterwards it was a form of entertainment for the 
ladies of the court to witness the punishment of the unhappy 
men who had been condemned to death. Agrippa d'Aubigné, the 
Huguenot historian, when he was ten years old, saw the heads of 
the conspirators, which still could be recognized upon the scaffold, 
and swore to his father to devote his life to avenging them. As 
to the prince of Conde, he was arrested and condemned to death, 
but before the sentence could be carried out, Francis II died of a 
disease of the ear complicated with gangrene December 3rd, 1560. 

5. The Reign of Charles IX (1560-1574).— Charles IX, 
brother of Francis II, who then became king, was ten years 



ESTATES AT ORLÉANS AND AT PONTOISE 401 

and a half old, and ruled at first under the tutelage of his 
mother, Catharine de' Medici. In order to safeguard the crown 
of her son against the plots of the ambitious and the pas- 
sions of religious fanaticism, she adopted a policy which 
was consonant at the same time with her own genius and with 
the traditions of her country. Instead of proceeding straight to 
her purpose, she balanced between the parties, disconcerted them 
by her unexpected changes of front, set them one against the other, 
and, in this way, temporarily secured the triumph of the royal 
authority, but in this political seesaw she lost the sense of good 
faith and of morality, smiled when she was reproached with lying, 
and made seduction and perfidy the ordinary means of government. 

Having decided to rule all factions, the queen regent at first 
appeared ready to adopt the policy of moderation, and gave the 
highest office of state, that of Chancellor, to Michael de I'Hospital. 
Born in 15 15, in Auvergne, I'Hospital was the son of one of 
Constable Bourbon's phj^sicians. Successively a lawyer, a counselor 
to the Parlement, a superintendent general of the finances, and a 
member of the Privy Council of the king, he was known as a 
man of learning and a jurisconsult. With his long white beard, 
his pale countenance, and his austere manners, he was fittingly 
compared by one of his contemporaries to Cato the Censor. A 
defender of legality, superior to factions, raised by his clear-cut 
and strict judgment above the violences of the men of his time, 
he had the genius of a legislator, the soul of a philosopher, and 
the heart of a citizen. If he loved the old maxim: '' One faith, 
one law, one king," he wished a tolerant faith, a protecting law, 
and a king who was impartial in the interests of his subjects. 

6. The Estates at Orléans, and at Pontoise (1560-1561).— 
The queen mother at first identified herself with the moderate 
policy of the Chancellor, and in order to weaken the Guises, she 
called to power the princes of Bourbon. Then she summoned the 
Estates General at Orléans. At the opening of the assembly, the 
Chancellor, in a touching manner, besought the two parties in 
the name of their creeds to stop short of the fatal precipice toward 
which their fanaticism was urging them. '* Let us rather pray 
God unceasingly for them," he said, in speaking of the heretics, 
" and let us do everything which may be possible for us to do, 
so long as there is any hope of reclaiming and converting them; 



402 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

mildness will avail more than severity. Let us cast aside those 
diabolical words, names of parties, factions, and seditions, Luth- 
erans, Huguenots, Papists; let us not change from the name 
Christian." Moved by his words the deputies of the Third 
Estate issued an edict of toleration, and suspended punishment. 
In the following year, the new Estates assembled at Pontoise, and 
they, too, unanimously recorded themselves in favor of religious 
toleration. The minutes of record of these two assemblies furnish 
evidence of great maturity and unusual political wisdom, the 
results of which I'Hospital sought to perpetuate in the great 
ordinance of Orléans (1561). 

7. The Colloquy of Poissy (1561). — Nevertheless, Francis 
of Guise, in consequence of the alarm of the Catholic party, made 
preparations for resistance, which a chance circumstance favored. 
Upon a certain day, when the old Constable Montmorency heard 
the bishop of Valence preach at court, who passed as being favor- 
able to the Calvinists, he went down with indignation to the 
kitchens of the castle for the purpose of hearing the sermon of a 
Jacobin friar. He met there the duke of Guise, and the Marshal 
of Saint André. The same afternoon the three men came to an 
agreement that they would combat the progress of the reformers, 
and for that purpose formed a triumvirate. 

Catharine and the Chancellor, on the other hand, hoped that 
reciprocal concessions might lead to the establishment of an agree- 
ment between the Catholics and the Protestants, and to this end 
the queen mother called together at Poissy a formal assembly in 
which the Catholics were represented by the cardinal of Lorraine, 
the General of the Jesuits, and fifty prelates, the Protestants by 
Theodore Beza, the scholarly Peter Martyr, and about twenty 
clergymen. It was a veritable theological passage-at-arms. Beza 
set forth the reformed doctrines and was answered by the cardinal 
of Lorraine; but it was impossible for them to agree, and the two 
parties separated, more irritated than before and wider apart than 
ever. In vain I'Hospital made a last effort at conciliation by 
publishing the Edict of January in 1562 which permitted the exer- 
cise of the Protestant worship outside the walls of the cities. The 
reformers were becoming emboldened, and changing the name of 
Charles of Valois to an anagram Drive out their Idol {Chasse 
leur idole), they urged the king to forbid the mass. Upon their 



THE BEGINNING OF THE RELIGIOUS WARS 403 

part, the Catholics committed violences, and called upon the duke 
of Guise to prevent the execution of the Edict of January. 

8. The Beginning of the Religious Wars. — Thus it needed 
one incident only to precipitate the war which had been preparing 
for several years, and this incident took place at Vassy, March ist, 
1562. Francis of Guise was returning from Alsace, where he 
had had an interview with the duke of Wurtemberg. When 
he arrived at Vassy, the Protestants were found assembled in a 
barn, where they were chanting Psalms. The duke's men-at- 
arms provoked a quarrel with them, and attacked every one 
savageh^ Sixty were killed, and a great number wounded: 
*' Caesar has crossed the Rubicon ! " cried Conde, when he heard 
the news. The massacre of Vassy, which had been preceded by 
other acts of violence of the same character, was really not the 
cause, but the signal for the wars of religion to begin. 

These wars were characterized throughout the whole of France 
by an unmeasured excess of cruelties and outrage. Brigandage, 
*' unbridled license," was everywhere, in the Catholic army, as well 
as among the Protestant bands ; " the people are devoured between 
the two factions," said L'Estoile, and the memoirs of the time con- 
tain accounts of continual pillage, burning, and murder. These 
are the daily exploits of " Madam la Picoree," a saint who figured 
as well in the Huguenot calendar as in the Catholic litanies. 
It became " a habit, a tradition," says a contemporary, " to rob and 
pillage, to put towns up for ransom, to tear down churches, dese- 
crate graves, burn villages, massacre priests, and, in short, to com- 
mit throughout all France the most detestable cruelties of which 
it is possible to conceive." 

Claude Haton has given a frightful recital of the miseries 
which fell upon the city of Provins: the civil war from day to 
day, the continual alarm, a nobility turned brigand, who went up 
and down the highroads to despoil travelers, a corrupt clergy, and 
a soldiery who fell without ceasing upon the country, taking a 
ferocious joy in killing and in pillaging. The Protestant Des 
Adrets spread horror throughout Lyonnais and Dauphiny with 
the tales of his bloody exploits, and he " was feared more than 
any hurricane which ever swept over fields of standing grain." 
The Catholic Monluc hung the Huguenots on the branches of 
trees, and massacred the women and the children. At Terraube, 



404 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

he butchered all the inhabitants, and filled the wells with them, 
" so that they could be touched with the hand," he said, " a fine 
execution of very evil fellows." Some of the Protestant chiefs, 
Coligny, La Noue, and Duplessis Mornay, alone showed a spirit 
of humanity and of moderation, which, to a certain extent, was 
a compensation for these violences, but France despairingly saw 
opening out before her a vista of hatred and rage in which all the 
passions were unchained, in which commerce, agriculture, and in- 
dustry were ruined, and in which both parties alternately sought 
the support of the stranger. 

9. The First Civil War (1562-1563).— While a guerrilla 
warfare was thus drenching France with blood, the two parties 
were organizing about Paris. At the head of the Protestants were 
the prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny. The triumvirs com- 
manded the Catholics, and while these men were obtaining rein- 
forcements from Philip II, the Calvinists were asking aid of Queen 
Elizabeth of England, to whom they surrendered Havre and 
Dieppe. Guise marched upon Rouen, which Montgomery was 
defending, and took possession of the town in a murderous assault 
in which Antoine de Bourbon, whose ambition had drawn him to 
the cause of the triumvirate, was mortally wounded. For his 
part, Conde, reinforced by seven thousand Germans, made a vain 
demonstration before Paris, and placed himself right in front of the 
royal army, which he attacked at Dreux. Here, in spite of their 
courage, the Protestants were defeated, Conde and Montgomery 
were taken, and Saint André killed. 

The death of the king of Navarre and of Saint André, the 
captivity of Conde and of Montmorency, left only two men of 
importance — Guise and Coligny. Thus, Charles IX felt himself 
isolated with his mother, between these two powerful subjects. 
In order to bring about the triumph of his own cause. Guise laid 
siege to Orléans. On the i8th of February, 1563, he was about 
to deliver the assault when he was killed by a pistol shot, fired by 
a Protestant nobleman, Poltrot de Méré. Thus died, at the 
age of forty-four, a man whom his contemporaries called " Mon- 
sieur Guise, the Great," one of the most able and fortunate cap- 
tains of the XVI century. The queen mother thus became all- 
powerful, and hastened to conclude with Conde the pacification of 
Amboise, March 19th, 1563. This accorded the free observance 



THE SECOND CIVIL WAR 405 

of the Protestant worship upon the lands of nobles who exercised 
high justice, and in the suburbs of one town in each bailiwick. 
Catholics and Protestants then joined forces against the English 
at Havre, and drove them from the city. 

10. The Interview at Bayonne (1565). — In order to in- 
crease the authority of her government, Catharine declared her 
son of age; but, as a matter of fact, she herself retained the 
power with I'Hospital. In 1564, she undertook a great tour 
throughout the provinces, and at Bayonne she had an interview 
with the queen of Spain, who was her own daughter Elizabeth, 
and the duke of Alva, the ambassador of Philip IL The king 
of Spain had authorized them to propose to the regent a joint 
enterprise against the Huguenots throughout the whole of Europe 
in the form of the same kind of war of extermination which had 
succeeded in Spain. He indicated to her that to strike the 
leaders was a desirable means of freeing herself from the em- 
barrassment of heresy; but he failed utterly in securing any joint 
action. 

11. The Ordinance of Moulins. — Catharine, at this mo- 
ment, was aiming to neutralize by means of a wise balance all 
the dominant influences in the realm, and to unite them in a 
common enterprise against the foreigner. L'Hospital, for his 
part, did his best to accomplish this work of pacification by 
sagacious and wide-reaching reforms. He had published, in 1566, 
the great ordinance of Moulins, which touched upon all parts of 
the administration. It declared the royal domain inalienable, 
limited and regulated the Parlement's right of remonstrance, or- 
ganized tours of inspection of the magistrates throughout the 
kingdom, instituted a system of examination for the judges who 
had been chosen, and attempted to establish in office capable and 
well-informed magistrates. 

12. The Second Civil War (1567-1568).— Nothing, how- 
ever, could pacify the passions of the time. Condé and Coligny, 
knowing that the court desired to revoke the peace of Amboise, 
gathered together an army, and unsuccessfully tried to possess 
themselves of the king's person, at Monceau. This was the occa- 
sion for the second civil war. Condé established himself, with 
four thousand men, at Saint-Denis, and the Paricians compelled 
Montmorency to attack him in the plain of V^ertus. The Calvin- 



4o6 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

ists were beaten, but the Constable was killed by the Scotch Robert 
Stuart. Reinforced by the German auxiliaries of John Casimir, 
Condé laid siege to Chartres, in order to starve out the city of 
Paris; but Catharine signed the peace of Longjumeau, which 
confirmed the treaty of Amboise in 1568. It was nothing, accord- 
ing to the opinion of the time, but a " little peace," or a peace 
Malassise, from the name of Malassis who negotiated it. 

13. The Third Civil War (1568-1570).— As a matter of 
fact the two factions did not by any means lay down their arms. 
The queen mother, who was no longer afraid of the Catholic 
princes, now suddenly changed her policy, and planned to rid her- 
self of the Protestant leaders. She freed herself from the presence 
of an importunate censor, by dismissing Chancellor I'Hospital, and 
suddenly ordered the arrest of Condé and Coligny, in Burgundy. 
" This attempt failed, badly arranged by the distaff and the pen, 
by the queen and Cardinal Lorraine." The two leaders were 
able to escape the ambush, crossed France at a gallop, and took 
refuge in La Rochelle. There they were joined by the nobility 
of Poitou, by five thousand Gascons, by the Huguenots of Brit- 
tany, Maine, and Normandy, and by the queen of Navarre, who 
brought her son, Henry, the prince of Beam, with her. 

The royal army, led by the duke of Anjou, and by Tavannes, 
met the army of the reformers near Jarnac, March 13th, 1569. 
The Huguenots were defeated; Condé was wounded and had 
already been made prisoner when the captain of the guards, 
Montesquiou, killed him with a pistol shot. Coligny took over 
the command of the army, while Jeanne d'Albret made them 
swear fidelity to her son, Henry of Navarre, and to Henry of 
Condé, son of the prince, killed at Jarnac: one of them was 
seventeen years old, the other was sixteen. The Huguenots, 
who nicknamed them " the pages of the admiral," when they 
saw them humbly accept the advice of the old warrior, were 
nevertheless proud at having in their ranks two princes of the 
blood. They beat the Catholic army at La Roche-Abeille. 
Coligny then wished to carry the war to the north, but the 
Poitevin nobility refused to follow him. Although crushed at 
Moncontour, October 3d, 1569, he boldly crossed Guienne and 
the Langue d'Oc, appeared in Burgundy, was victorious at Arnay- 
le-Duc, and threatened Paris. 



COLIGNY'S PROJECTS 407 

The queen mother was therefore obliged to sign the treaty of 
Saint Germain-en-Laye in 1570, which stipulated for (i) the free 
exercise of the reformed religion in two cities of every bailiwick, 
and in all places where it already existed, (2) the admission of the 
Protestants to all public offices, and (3) the right of garrisoning four 
cities as pledges of security : La Rochelle, Montauban, Cognac, and 
La Charité. 

14. Coligny's Projects. — For the third time peace appeared 
to reign, but it was neither in the spirit nor in the heart of the 
times. The Protestant ministers preached revolution, and the 
Catholic preachers believed that they were assuring the salvation 
of the faithful in urging them on to the extermination of the 
heretics. One man, at least, would have been glad to put an 
end to these intestine struggles. This was the Admiral Coligny. 
He planned at first to have the Protestants migrate to America, 
where he dreamed of an asylum far away for those who were 
oppressed in their own country, but the Spaniards massacred the 
explorers whom he sent to Florida. 

Coligny then wished to colonize Palestine with the Huguenots 
who were persecuted in France, hoping to make Jerusalem the 
capital of a kind of Protestant republic, which should maintain 
in the Orient the language, the activity, and the industrial power 
of their native land ; but, compelled to give up this idea, too, he 
resolved to profit by the ascendency which he had secured over 
the mind of the young king, in order to direct the spirit of tur- 
bulence into a new channel. His idea was to join in a great 
national war all the Frenchmen who were at that moment divided, 
and to assume resolutely the protection of the Flemish against 
Philip H. Charles IX received this great thought with enthusi- 
asm, and preparations were actively pushed forward. 

At the same time a marriage agreement appeared about to 
cement the alliance of royalty and the Protestants. Charles IX 
proposed to unite his sister. Marguerite, with the young Henry 
of Navarre, the leader of the reform party. Jeanne d'Albret 
reluctantly gave her consent to it, and the contract was signed 
April nth, 1572. Scarcely had Jeanne arrived in Paris when 
she suddenly died, June loth, without there being any foundation, 
however, for the rumor which immediately spread that she had 
been poisoned. 



4o8 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

15. The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew (August 24, 
1572). — The marriage of Henry of Navarre and Marguerite of 
Valois, which was celebrated at Paris on the i8th of August, 1572, 
attracted to the capital a great throng of Protestant noblemen. 
Their presence and their numbers offered an opportunity for the 
execution of plans perhaps long considered. If the Huguenot 
leader, Coligny, could be assassinated by the Guises, the Hugue- 
nots were reasonably sure to take bloody vengeance on the duke's 
party; then it would be opportune, when both factions were 
weakened, for the royal troops to fall upon them and thus impose 
upon Protestant and Catholic alike the absolute rule of the crown. 

Whatever the plan, events in the capital followed in this order. 
On the 22d, Coligny, setting out from the Louvre, was wounded 
by a shot from an arquebus, fired by Maurevert, a professional 
assassin in the pay of the young Henry of Guise. Charles IX 
having been informed, came to see the wounded man, and swore 
to avenge him; but the queen mother seemed to be afraid of an 
uprising of the Protestants, as a consequence of this attack, and 
in this real or pretended fear she found an excellent pretext for 
ridding herself of the chief Protestant leaders. Whether the 
massacre which followed would have been avoided had Coligny 
been killed outright instead of being simply wounded remains and 
will remain a matter of doubt. At any rate Catharine immediately 
called together the King's Council. 

Henry of Guise, son of Francis, Nevers, Gondi, Birague, and 
Tavannes counseled her to make an end of the Huguenots. The 
trouble was in obtaining the sanction of the king; but Catharine, 
who understood him thoroughly, and who knew " his peculiar 
weakness of flying into violent fits of passion," went herself to her 
son. She spoke, she threatened, and she wept. Finally, the poor 
child, driven to madness, cried, " Kill them then, but kill them 
all, in order that there shall not remain one of them to reproach 
me for my lack of faith. Eh! mort-Dieu! give the order for it 
promptly." 

The day of the 23d was passed in preparation. Upon the 
night of the 24th, the bell of Saint Germain-l'Auxerrois gave the 
signal. Immediately, the duke of Guise rushed to the apartments 
of the Admiral, and the German, Behme, having killed Coligny 
with a sword threw his body out of the window. While this 



THE FOURTH CIVIL WAR . 409 

was going on, scenes of horror and bloodshed were beginning in 
the capital. In the Louvre all of the Huguenot noblemen were 
killed outright, while the king of Navarre and the prince of 
Conde saved their lives at the price of abjuration only. It was 
not only religious passion, it was the loosing of everj^thing that 
was basest and most ferocious in human nature. The carnage 
lasted three days. 

Scenes like those witnessed in the capital were repeated in the 
greater part of the provinces. Many of the governors, neverthe- 
less, refused to obey the orders of the court. The number of 
victims varies according to different historians; but it seems quite 
probable that three or four thousand people were massacred at 
Paris, and about twenty-five to thirty thousand in the rest of 
France. 

No historical event has had more discussion bestowed upon it 
than that of Saint Bartholomew, and doubt alwaj^s appears to 
hover over that somber night. Nevertheless, it seems that we 
may dismiss the legend according to which Catharine and Charles 
IX had dissimulated for three years, and pretended good-will to- 
ward the Huguenots, in order the more easily to attract them to 
Paris, and to murder them in a single night. '' The crimson 
marriage festivities," do noc appear to have been premeditated. 
" It was a plan born of the occasion," says Tavannes. Retz and 
Tavannes suggested the idea of the crime. Catharine and the 
duke of Anjou assured its execution, and Charles IX was per- 
suaded to give the fatal order. For the details of the execution, 
credit must be given to the rancor of the Guises, and to popular 
passion aroused to fury by the long-continued preaching of the 
Jesuits. The queen mother had as her accomplice her whole age. 
Saint Bartholomew's day has justly been regarded as a stigma by 
French historians, and that woeful night has left in the mind of 
France the saddest recollections. 

16. The Fourth Civil War (1572-1574).— The "Parisian 
matins" provoked a new uprising; but the Protestants valiantly 
defended themselves in La Rochelle and Sancerre, and the 
court was obliged to sign the peace of La Rochelle (1573), which 
granted to the Huguenots the liberty of conscience, and freedom 
of worship in a certain number of towns. As to the unfortunate 
Charles IX, for the rest of his life his mind was unbalanced. 



410 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

Sometimes he was seen chasing the stag continuously for three 
days, remaining on horseback for twelve or fourteen hours at a 
time; sometimes shut up by himself, avoiding the light, trembling 
at the least noise, he had constantly before his vision the bloody 
scenes which he had ordered. He died finally at the age of 
twenty-five. May 30th, 1574. 

17. The Reign of Henry III (1574-1589).— The king left 
no legitimate offspring, and the crown passed to his brother, the 
duke of Anjou, Henry III. He was in Poland at the time, where 
he had been declared king in 1573; but he made haste to leave 
Cracow with great secrecy, and crossed Austria and Italy in the 
midst of celebrations. No one was less fitted to cope with the 
perils of the situation than this favorite son of Catharine. Brave 
and intelligent, he had nevertheless strange and depraved habits. 
Passing from the exercises of devotion to the pleasures of a 
scandalous life, he might be seen alternately marching as a peni- 
tent in the Parisian processions, or occupying himself with his 
toilet. Surrounded by little dogs, parrots, and apes, accompanied 
by his favorites, loaded with perfumes, with curled hair, earrings 
dangling from his ears, and his neck circled with a double neck- 
lace of gold and amber, he shocked his contemporaries. 

All the while the situation was becoming each day more serious. 
The Protestants, now solidly organized, and masters of one 
hundred and twenty fortified places, could count upon the aid 
of Elizabeth of England and the German lanzknechts. The 
Catholics relied upon the support of Philip II, who had written to 
Guise: '' If you wish to chastise these rebels, I am at your service." 
In France they had as their leaders the cardinal of Lorraine, 
brother of the duke of Guise, who had been assassinated at 
Orléans, and his nephews, the young duke Henry of Guise, and 
the cardinal of Guise, both of them filled with an ambition the 
more unrestrained as they saw the power in the hands of a 
prince possessing neither energy nor dignity. 

18. The Fifth Civil War (1575-1576).— Nevertheless, be- 
tween the two extremes of the Guises and the reformers, moderate 
opinion was taking a form which won over men of independent 
character who had been compelled to realize the sanity of 
I'Hospital's ideas of toleration. These were called the Politiques, 
or the Malcontents. Their leader was Henry of Montmorency, 



THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE 411 

Marshal of Damville, governor of the Langue d'Oc. A prince of 
the blood, the duke of Alençon, the king's brother, also joined the 
party of the Politiques, and gave his hand to Henry of Navarre 
and to the prince of Conde, w^ho had fled the court. The fifth 
civil w^ar now broke out in 1575. By the terms of the con- 
ventions of Milhau, the Protestants and the Politiques came to 
close understanding; but the duke of Guise defeated the German 
ritters of Thore at Dormans and received there a vi^ound on the 
cheek, which gave him the nickname of " the scarred." 

This victory increased the prestige of the Guises, but did not 
help Henry HI in any way. Therefore Catharine made haste 
to sign the peace of Beaulieu, which granted the greatest advan- 
tages to the Politiques and to the Protestants. By its terms the 
duke of Alençon received Anjou, Touraine, and Berry, the king 
of Navarre, Guienne, and Conde, Picardy. To the Protestants 
was granted freedom of conscience, public and well-nigh universal 
exercise of their religion, the right to hold any public office, equal 
representation in the Parlements, and eight fortified places as 
pledges of security. 

This "peace of Monsieur" (1576) aroused the indignation of 
the Catholics by stipulating for advantages solely in favor of the 
vanquished Huguenots. The duke of Guise now understood that 
he could no longer count upon the king. He therefore held no 
intercourse with him, and gave himself over entirely to his own 
confidential agents. The struggle then began between the house 
of Valois and the house of Guise. 

19. The Catholic League (1576). — For a long time past 
the Catholics had held aloof from Henry HI, basing their hope 
upon Henry of Guise, whom the people hailed with acclamation 
when he passed, bearing himself with a majestic dignity, his figure 
erect, his aspect alert, with the scar on his cheek. 

Certain agents had been circulating throughout France for 
several weeks the idea of arming the Catholics, and of joining 
them together by means of an oath into a formidable league di- 
rected against the Huguenots and the Politiques. The idea was 
not new; Monluc had attempted to apply it in Guienne, and 
Tavannes in Burgundy. In 1576, the marshal d'Humières, gov- 
ernor of Peronne, believing that he had been abandoned by Conde, 
actually united against him, his relations, his allies, and his friends, 



412 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

and organized a powerful association of more than five hundred 
persons. 

Almost at once, similar associations were formed in a unique 
confederation, which took the name of the Holy League, or the 
Holy Catholic Union. The adherents of these associations swore 
to continue until death in the Holy Union, formed in the name 
of the most Holy Trinity for the defense of the Catholic religion, 
of King Henry III, and of the prerogatives which the realm had 
enjoyed under the reign of Clovis. 

" We bind ourselves," they said, '' to use our goods and our 
lives for the success of the Holy Union, and to pursue to the 
death those who oppose any obstacle to it. All who sign shall 
be under the safeguard of the Union, and in case they are attacked, 
annoyed, or molested, we will undertake their defense even by 
means of arms against any one whosoever he may be. . . . There 
shall be elected, as soon as possible, a leader whom all the con- 
federates shall be obliged to obey, and those who refuse, shall be 
punished according to his will. . . . Those who refuse to join 
shall be treated as enemies, and be pursued by force of arms. 
The leader is to decide all controversies which may arise between 
the confederates, and they shall not have recourse to the ordinary 
magistrates except by his permission." 

In this manner, the Leaguers transferred all the royal power 
to their future chieftain, who it was felt ought to be some one 
else than the king. Henry III was informed of this conspiracy 
against his authority, thanks, partly, to the revelations of his am- 
bassador to Spain, and thanks also to a singular chance. A 
Parisian bourgeois, a lawyer by the name of David, having been 
secretly sent to Rome by the duke of Guise, in order to arrange 
with the Holy See means for resisting the Politiques and the 
Valois, fell sick and died on the way. His papers, which were 
seized and transmitted to the king, disclosed in a pretentious style, 
with pompous phrases and commonplace ideals, an actual act of 
indictment against the ruling dynasty, and a defense of the duke 
of Guise, who was advanced as the legitimate heir of Charlemagne 
and as the pretender to the throne. 

Thus, there was formed a powerful coalition of sincere be- 
liefs and intense cupidity, of energetic passion and low intrigues, 
which extended its branches over the whole of France, resting, 



CLAIM OF HENRY OF BOURBON 413 

at the same time, upon religious fanaticism, demagogic passions, 
and an alliance with Spain. 

20. The Sixth Civil War (1576-1577).— In the midst of this 
general agitation Henry III convened the Estates General of Blois 
(December 6th, 1576). Composed almost entirely of Leaguers, it 
decided that the king had the right to authorize but one religion in 
France. Henry III, feeling himself outmanoeuvered, now headed 
the League, and revoked all the concessions which had been 
accorded to the reformers. At once the sixth civil war broke out, 
which was marked by a series of unimportant skirmishes, until 
Henry III signed the peace of Bergerac (1577), in spite of the 
Guises and Spain. 

This treatv^ modified the edict of Beaulieu in a Catholic sense; 
it reduced the exercise of the Protestant religion to one town 
in each bailiwick, created a " Chamber of the Edict " in each 
Parlement in favor of the reformers, gave to them La Reole, 
and Saint- Jean-d'Angély, and admitted their right to hold public 
office and the magistracies. 

21. Seventh Civil War (1580-1581).— This peace, advan- 
tageous though it was to the Protestants, was far from restoring 
order in the realm. In vain Henry III endeavored to calm the 
public mind by issuing the ordinance of Blois, which made actual 
certain important administrative and judicial reforms, for he 
wantonly compromised his royal dignity by his scandalous de- 
bauches, and by his pious observances, which served merely as a 
relish for his orgies. He sought to embroil the king of Navarre 
and the prince of Conde, and certain trivial remarks which he made 
about his sister. Marguerite, the wife of Henry of Navarre, led 
to a seventh war which was called the Lovers' War. The king 
of Navarre took Cahors, but the prince of Conde lost La Fère. 
The peace of Fleix (1580) confirmed the preceding treaties. 

Henry III then resolved to give a new impulse to his foreign 
policy. He sent a French fleet to support Antoine de Crato in 
Portugal against Philip II, and intrusted his brother, the duke of 
Anjou, with the invasion of the Netherlands; but the duke failed, 
and died at Château-Thierry in 1584. His unexpected death com- 
plicated a situation already so embarrassing to the king of France. 

22. Claim of Henry of Bourbon. — Henry HI had no chil- 
dren by his marriage with Louise of Vaudemont. The nearest 



414 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

heir to the crown would be, therefore, a prince of the house of 
Bourbon, Henry of Navarre, son of Antoine de Bourbon, and 
Jeanne d'Albret; but the young king of Navarre was a Prot- 
estant, and, since the death of Condé, he was the leader of the 
reformed churches. 

The prospect of his accession aroused in France the most 
formidable opposition, and from now on, the League underwent 
a rapid extension. It recognized, as the heir to the crown. Car- 
dinal Bourbon, but the true pretender, in the eyes of every one, 
was Henry of Guise, who signed, February 2d, 1585, the treaty 
of Joinville with Philip II. Inasmuch as he had been, since 
1578, in the pay of the king of Spain, and had received regular 
subsidies from him, the treaty of Joinville simply brought his 
triumph to a climax. By its terms he was promised fifty thousand 
crowns a month and the support of an army which would assure 
the victory of Catholicism. Henry III, terrified, came to an 
understanding immediately with the Leaguers, and signed with 
them the treaty of Nemours (1585), in which he forbade any 
exercise of the reformed religion under penalty of death. The 
king of Navarre, henceforth, was face to face with the pretender, 
who sought to lay his hands upon France. 

23. Eighth Civil War (1586-1589).— Pope Sixtus V 
launched a bull of excommunication against Henry of Navarre, 
who, in turn, had placarded in Rome a violent remonstrance 
against the " so-called pope," and there began another phase of 
the struggle which is known as the War of the Three Henrys 
(Henry III, Henry of Navarre, and Henry of Guise). The king 
of Navarre quickly engaged the royal army commanded by the 
favorite, Joyeuse, near Coutras, and won a victory from him; 
but instead of proceeding northward to render aid to his Swiss 
and German allies, he withdrew into Béarn, and Henry of Guise 
took advantage of this mistake to defeat the Swiss at Vimory 
and the Germans at Auneau. 

Ever since the treaty of Nemours, Paris had become the real 
center of the League, and the Parisians openly raised troops and 
excited the other towns of the kingdom to war. The famous 
Council of Sixteen was now formed. It consisted of forty-five 
members, chosen from the sixteen quarters of Paris, which com- 
pletely controlled the guilds and the militia. 



THE SECOND ESTATES GENERAL AT BLOIS 415 

Henry HI, threatened on all sides, forbade the duke of Guise 
to come to Paris. Without paying any attention to this prohibi- 
tion, *' the new Maccabeus " made a formal entry into the capital 
in the midst of the acclamations of the crowd, who hailed him as 
" the liberator of his country," and kissed the hem of his garments. 
In the king's suite, there was talk of arresting the duke, who 
boldly presented himself at the Louvre. Percutimn pastorem et 
dispergentur oves, said the abbé Del Bene; but Henry HI hesi- 
tated. 

The next day Guise came back with an escort of four hundred 
noblemen, and dictated his own terms. The king immediately had 
his Swiss allies summoned in order to bring the people to reason ; 
but the day following. May 12th, 1588, the people arose, barri- 
caded the streets by stretching chains across them, and while 
Catharine de' Medici was endeavoring to negotiate with Guise as 
a result of this Day of Barricades, Henry III abruptly left Paris 
and made his way to Chartres. '' With him the crown of France 
slipped from the hand which had just opened to seize it." 

24. The Second Estates General at Blois (1588).— The 
negotiations which had been opened up between the " King of 
Chartres " and the *' King of Paris," led to the Edict of Union, 
which was published at Rouen. By its terms, an almost sovereign 
authority was given to the chief of the League, and the convocation 
of the Estates General at Blois was promised (1588). That 
assembly, which came together on the sixteenth of October, con- 
tained only the most violent Leaguers. It demanded the adop- 
tion of the decrees of the Council of Trent, the exclusion of every 
Protestant prince from the throne, the resumption of hostilities 
against the Huguenots, and the recognition of popular sovereignty. 

Guise haughtily advanced his claims; but the king refused to 
yield Orléans to him as a place of security. His sister, the 
duchess of Montpensier, displayed a pair of golden scissors which 
she wore at her side " for the purpose of making a monastic 
crown {the tonsure) for Henry when he shall be shut up in a 
monastery." 

From now on the king no longer hesitated, but secretly planned 
to be rid of his ambitious rival. On December 23d, he ordered 
the Corsican, Ornano, and forty-five Gascons to take up their 
position as bodyguards near his chamber. In the morning, the 



4i6 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

duke of Guise presented himself before the king in the Cabinet. 
Here he was suddenly set upon and pierced through before he 
had a chance to draw his sword. The king, in order to assure 
himself that the duke was really dead, went up and stirred the 
body with his foot. Cardinal Guise, brother of ** the scarred," 
was put to death on the following day. This vigorous action 
overthrew the Guises forever. 

25. The Siege of Paris. Assassination of Henry III 
(1589). — It is reported that upon learning of the assassination 
of Guise, the aging Catharine de' Medici said to her son: "God 
grant that his death does not make you king of nothing. It is 
indeed well cut, but it is necessary to sew up again." As a matter 
of fact, it was the League which had given force to the duke of 
Guise, and the League was more powerful than ever. 

When the news reached Paris that the duke had been assassi- 
nated, there arose throughout the city a chorus of oaths and 
wailings. Funeral services were celebrated in honor of the 
glorious duke; the downfall was announced of the vile Herod (the 
anagram of Henry of Valois), and the affairs of the League were 
intrusted to Henry of Mayenne, the younger brother of Henry 
of Guise. One hundred thousand persons took part in a solemn 
procession, bearing a taper of yellow wax which, upon entering 
the church of Sainte-Geneviève, they extinguished, shouting: " May 
God thus extinguish the Valois race! " 

Henry HI, without money, and without an army, seemed lost. 
Upon the advice of the duke of Epernon, and of Duplessis-Mornay, 
he consented to open up negotiations with the king of Navarre 
(1589). The two princes held an interview at Plessis-les-Tours, 
and advanced upon Paris at the head of forty-two thousand men. 
The siege of the capital was begun, but on the first of August, 
on the day before the assault was to have been delivered, a 
monk, Jacques Clément, inflamed by the preaching of the priests 
of the League, and by the duchess of Montpensier, poniarded the 
king in the camp at Saint-Cloud. Before dying, Henry III desig- 
nated Henry of Navarre as his successor. 

26. The Results of the Religious Wars. — The death of 
the last Valois did not put an end to the civil war. The re- 
ligious question and the dynastic question still remained unaltered, 
and the two factions, Catholic and Huguenot, Guise and Bour- 



THE RESULTS OF THE RELIGIOUS WARS 417 

bon, remained face to face. Never had the monarchy and France 
incurred so great a peril. If an attempt is made to untangle 
the chief characteristics of the religious v\'ars, there appears an 
aristocratic reaction and a democratic reaction against the crown 
at the same time that a dismemberment of the national unit}^ is 
being attempted. 

The Protestant nobility, like the Catholic aristocracy, were 
endeavoring to win back their independence. Each one was for 
himself; Mercœur or Epernon, each wanted a province, Guise 
wanted the kingdom ; La Renaudie cried out one day that it was 
sheer madness that such a realm, should be governed by a single 
king. Guise wished to overthrow Henry III, and was assured 
that a majority of the king's captains would have supported him. 
The same ambition is attributed to Louis Conde, and a medal was 
struck bearing the inscription: Ludovicus XIII dei gratia Fran- 
coruni Rex primus christianus. " The State," says Duplessis- 
iVIornay, " is rent and overturned," and the Calvinist doctors did 
not fear to call up the names of historic tyrannicides, Aod and 
Judith, Harmodius and Aristogiton. 

If the religious wars were, at the beginning, the struggle of 
the federated aristocracy against the centralized power of the 
crown, the movement soon took on the character of a real demo- 
cratic revolution. At Paris, and in the greater part of the cities 
of the realm, there was a desire to return to the municipal past 
which the crown had suppressed. " The dictates of duty and 
of obedience were all abandoned," saj'S Hurault. The League 
indorsed these views in its writings and sought to adopt a semi- 
democratic rule in which the monarch would have been allowed 
hardly so much power as a constitutional ruler of our own day. 
The Parisian preachers, Rose, Boucher, and Lincestre, thun- 
dered from the pulpit against the baseness of the Valois court, 
while heated Protestant pamphlets, issued under Charles IX, 
openly attacked the idea of the absolute monarchy. Such were 
The Tiger, the Day of the Awakening of the French, which offered 
a plan for municipal and democratic organization, the Franco- 
Gallia, a long dissertation replete with Biblical quotations to prove 
that royalt}^ was for a long time elective, and the Vindiciae contra 
tyran nos. The peasants themselves, as a result of hearing so 
much talk about liberty, endeavored to set themselves free from all 



4i8 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 

authority, even that of the nobility, and a real jacquerie deso- 
lated the provinces. 

The idea of patriotism v^as at length undermined in the heart 
of nearly every one. Each of the two factions had made an 
appeal to the foreigner; the Huguenots asked the aid of England, 
and delivered Havre to them; the Catholics called upon Philip 
II, with whom they signed the treaty of Joinville, and upon 
Charles Emanuel of Savoy, to whom they opened Provence, while 
Brittany and a great number of the provinces sought to render 
themselves entirely independent. 

Without doubt, there were high-minded men who preached 
toleration, and enlightened patriots who protested in the name 
of France, but for the majority of the participants in the re- 
ligious wars, the idea of patriotism had disappeared along with 
the worship of the crown. It was time that a prince should 
appear, sufficiently able to calm this hatred, and sufficiently power- 
ful to crush out all resistance. This was to be the task of 
Henry IV. 



CHAPTER XXV 

HENRY IV TO THE EDICT OF NANTES (1598) 

1. The Youth of Henry IV. — Henry of Navarre was the 
son of Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne d'Albret. At an early 
age the 3^cung prince was taken to Paris, immediately after the 
death of Antoine de Bourbon. At that time he was a great 
hardy boy incapable of either study or application. Passionately 
devoted to bodily exercise, it was his fond wish to become a 
soldier. His mother, an austere Calvinist, very quickly under- 
stood what his vocation should be, and during the year 1569 con- 
ducted him to the Protestant army. 

The prince participated^ in the battles of Jarnac and Mon- 
contour, where, in spite of his extreme youth, he had the intelli- 
gence to understand and to make note of the faults of which the 
prince of Condé, his uncle, and the admiral Coligny, were guilty. 
When the Protestant party had been exhausted by its successive 
defeats, he withdrew into the south and carried on with some 
degree of success a guerrilla warfare in the conduct of which he 
displayed his military qualities. 

Immediately after the peace of Saint-Germain, he betook himself 
to Paris, and married the sister of Charles IX, Marguerite of 
Valois. During the awful night of Saint Bartholomew, Henry, 
who was shut up in the Louvre, could hear the cries of his com- 
panions who were being murdered. Later, with his cousin, the 
prince of Condé, he was brought before Charles IX. '' Death or 
the Mass!" cried the king. Both princes, thoroughly terrified, 
yielded, and in order to save their lives sacrificed their religion. 
Retained as a captive and closely watched, Henry remained for 
a long time at court, charming every one by the grace of his 
manner and his winning disposition; and, willingly sharing the 
amusements and the dissipations of the courtiers, he gave himself 
up to the facile and gallant life of the Valois court. When the 

419 



420 HENRY IV TO THE EDICT OF NANTES 

Protestants had resumed their arms in 1576 he escaped from the 
Louvre, rejoined his old partisans, assembled a small court at 
Nerac, and displayed striking bravery at the battle of Coutras. 
He was finally recognized as heir to the crown by Henry III, to 
whom he was related only in the twenty-first degree, as a de- 
scendant of Robert of Clermont, a son of Saint Louis. 

2. Henry's Accession (1589). — Before his death at Saint- 
Cloud Henry III had sent for the king of Navarre, and had said 
to him, " My brother, the crown is yours after God has worked 
His will upon me." Then he prayed the princes and the gentle- 
men who surrounded his deathbed that they would take the oath 
of fidelity to Henry. 

Yet the position of Henry of Navarre was far from promising, 
since the Leaguers obstinately refused to recognize him. A part 
of them, the French Leaguers, had proclaimed, under the name 
of Charles X, the old cardinal of Bourbon, who was at that 
moment a prisoner of his nephew, Henry IV; another part, the 
Guisards, rallied to the cause of Henry of Ma^^enne, the brother 
of Henry of Guise, whom the impetuous duchess of Montpensier 
had urged to take the crown; and finally still a third part, the 
Spanish Leaguers, planned to surrender the power to the Infanta 
Isabella-Clara-Eugenia, the daughter of Philip II and Elizabeth, 
Henry Ill's sister. Besides this, the Catholic lords, having re- 
covered from the influence to which they had yielded in swearing 
allegiance to Henry of Navarre, were likewise divided into three 
factions: the Politiques wished to recognize Henry IV at once, 
and without any conditions; the ardent Catholics would not con- 
sent to follow him unless he abjured his Protestantism; and 
finally, the undecided, certain ambitious men, obstinately refused 
to rally to his cause, some because of their fears, others because 
they hoped to profit by the embarrassment of the monarchy. 
'' You are the king of brave men," Givry had said, *' and you 
will not be deserted except by cowards;" but the majority of 
Henry Ill's noblemen hesitated to serve a prince whose only 
mourning for his predecessor was a doublet which he had made 
out of the violet robes of the dead king. They could be seen 
crowding their hats upon their heads with furious gestures mutter- 
ing, " Rather die a thousand deaths than suffer a Huguenot 
king! " 



HENRY'S STRUGGLE FOR THE CROWN 421 

It was in vain that Henry of Navarre published his declaration 
of August 4th in which he promised to maintain the Catholic 
religion, to receive instruction in that faith, and to guarantee 
freedom of worship to the Protestants. A large number of 
Catholics forsook him, and their example was followed by La 
Trémoille and the majority of the reformed Gascons and Poitevins 
The royal army was thus reduced by half. 

3. Henry's Struggle for the Crown (1589-1590).— Unable 
from this time on to take possession of Paris, Henry IV directed 
his movements toward Clermont-en-Beauvaisis. Several of his 
followers urged him to withdraw into the south, but Biron and 
d'Aubigne were strongly opposed to his following this advice. 
" Who will believe that you are still king of France," they said, 
''when they see your letters dated from Limoges?" Henry IV 
felt the force of this objection, and betook himself to Normandy to 
await there the English reinforcements from Queen Elizabeth. 
He established himself at Dieppe, with not more than fourteen 
thousand men. I^ach day brought a fresh disillusionment. The 
Normans refused to recognize Henry IV, and the countryside 
rose upon the passage of the royal army. The help which his 
" good friend " Elizabeth had promised did not arrive, and dis- 
couragement little by little worked its way into all parts of the 
army. Henry was already at this time calculating whether, in 
case he had to embark, he would seek refuge in England or on the 
coast of Guienne. 

*' His small army," says Hanotaux, " was drawn up on the 
slopes of Arques. Before him was the valley of the Béthune and 
the road to Paris, the road over which he had just marched in 
great haste while the heavy army of Mayenne followed, pon- 
derously, at a distance, with a deliberation which indicated com- 
plete assurance of success. Now it had come, reinforced still 
further by a mass of Spaniards and Walloons. Behind was the 
sea, which cut off any hope of retreat; and, dominating the land- 
scape, disconcerting in spite of the autumnal grace of the fertile 
fields in which the fate of France was to be decided, stood the 
high walls of the old XIII century castle. The weather was de- 
pressing, since for several days a fog had concealed the valley. 
Finally, on the 21st of September, the army of Mayenne set itself 
in motion, and thirty thousand Spaniards and Leaguers fell upon 



422 HENRY IV TO THE EDICT OF NANTES 

fourteen thousand discouraged men whose fidelity the pretender 
had the greatest difficulty in retaining even for high pay. The 
opening of the combat was unfavorable to the royal troops. The 
Swiss gave way, and the cavalry was thrown into confusion. It 
was then that the king mounted his horse. A crowd of Huguenot 
and Catholic nobles, all tried men, surrounded him. It was they 
who, according to the saying of Givry, recognized in him *' the 
king of brave men." A cannon sounded from the castle. Sud- 
denly, through a circumstance often observed in battles, the cur- 
tain of mist rolled away, and the valley and hillsides were flooded 
with light. The two armies, one of which was just about to 
seize the victory and the other preparing to take flight, at the 
same instant saw the king descend as into a whirlpool from the 
top of the hill." 

He joined his soldiers, charged at their head, and decided 
in person the outcome of the battle; but this time, it 
was the Leaguers who were overthrown and had to beat a 
retreat. 

Notwithstanding this, the battle which began September 2ist, 
1589, lasted for six days, in which time Mayenne and the 
Leaguers made several attempts to take possession of the town and 
the castle of Arques, but all their assaults were repulsed. Re- 
inforcements for the royal army now arrived. Longueville and 
d'Aumont brought Henry several Picard regiments; and twelve 
hundred and sixty Scotch and four thousand English landed on 
the coast. Mayenne, afraid of being caught between two armies, 
raised the siege and withdrew toward Amiens. 

During this memorable struggle, which consisted less of a great 
battle than of a series of small engagements, Henry IV had killed 
or taken prisoner seventeen thousand of the enemy. He owed 
his success to the wise disposition of his troops by Biron, to the 
valor of his nobility, to the steadfastness of his troops, and to 
himself as much as to anything. " My cousin of Mayenne is a 
great captain," he said, *' but I get up earlier in the morning." 
He displayed the qualities of a true warrior, a tireless vigilance, 
an indefatigable activity, a bravery which was heroic without 
ever being rash. " The victory of Arques," says a contemporary, 
** was the first gate by means of which he entered upon the road 
to his good fortune and his glory." 



SIEGE OF PARIS 423 

4. The Battle of Ivry (1590).— The king forthwith then 
rapidly advanced upon the road to Paris, offered battle to the 
Leaguers of the capital without success, and occupied the greater 
part of Normandy. In six months he had won a great victory, 
had traveled with the royal army more than two hundred leagues, 
established his authority firmly in eight provinces, and gathered 
into his hands formidable resources. At the same time he saw 
his authority recognized by an array of the Powers. At Tours 
he met the Venetian ambassadors, charged with bearing to him 
the homage of the Seigneury. He had already secured the formal 
recognition of England, Scotland, the United Provinces, the Ger- 
man Protestant princes, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey. Half 
of Europe was on his side. 

Within the country he won the affection and respect of the 
people, treated the Leaguers less as enemies than as bewildered 
Frenchmen, forbade his soldiers to pillage, scrupulously respected 
the churches and the Catholic forms of worship, and thus won 
to his cause the most violent and the most obstinate. *' Nobody 
knows," he wrote, " how many wild persons I have had to tame 
by allaying their fears that I am only planning to establish myself 
in power, in order that afterwards I may overthrow their religion." 

The majorit}^ of the governors declared themselves for him, and 
there were not more than three provinces which were still of the 
party of the League: Guienne, Nivernais, and Angoumois. 

In the following j^ear Henry IV, after delivering Meulan and 
retaking Poissy, was on the point of laying siege to the town of 
Dreux, when Mayenne came up at the head of a new army of 
sixteen thousand men. The king did not have more than ten 
thousand, but he did not hesitate to offer battle to the enemy 
in the plain of Saint- André, near Ivry, March 14th, 1590. Be- 
fore the signal for the battle, Henry made a short prayer, then 
he addressed the soldiers in these words. " My comrades," said 
he, "God is for us! There are His enemies and ours! Here is 
your king! Upon them! If you lose your pennants, rally to my 
plume: you will find it on the road to victory and honor! " He 
fought as a brave soldier, and in less than two hours won a com- 
plete victory. 

5. Siege of Paris (1590). — The king at once set out for 
Paris and resumed the siege of the city. It was a difficult task 



424 HENRY IV TO THE EDICT OF NANTES 

to take possession with fifteen thousand men of a city of two 
hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants who had been roused 
to the point of fanaticism. To intimidate the moderate party 
in the city, there was organized an imposing military procession 
to the tomb of Sainte-Geneviève, composed of scholars, priests, 
and members of the religious orders, fitted out with cuirasses and 
swords. 

The city was soon decimated by famine, however. The Seine 
was at that time the main highway by which provisions reached 
the capital. Melun, Corbeil, Montereau, and Lagny, which 
commanded the course of the river and its affluents, were, accord- 
ing to the saying of the time, " the keys to the pantry of Paris," 
and when Henry IV had taken possession of them the Parisians 
were soon in absolute want of everything. Having exhausted 
their grain and vegetables, they had recourse to the most unclean 
animals for food, and even had bread made from bones taken 
from the cemetery of the Innocents which they ground up. 
Fifty thousand persons perished in three months. Henry, who 
had permitted the women and children to leave the cit}^ seeing 
that the resistance was almost at an end, nevertheless, checked 
very sharply those of his servitors who were inclined to relax the 
severe regulations of the siege. 

The city already seemed upon the point of surrendering, when 
Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, came upon the scene. The 
able Spanish captain arrived at Meaux, evaded the vigilance of 
the king, and took possession of Lagny, from which place he re- 
victualed the capital, and returned to the Low Countries. Henry 
IV thus lost the results of his four months' blockade. Having 
beaten and killed the duke d'Aumale at Saint-Denis, and having 
fruitlessly attempted to capture Paris, he proceeded to take posses- 
sion of Chartres, and established himself at Rouen. He was on 
the point of entering this city when the duke of Parma hurried 
back from the Low Countries. Henry IV attacked him near 
Aumale, but the battle remained indecisive. 

Some days afterward Alexander Farnese was mortally wounded 
in the fight at Caudebec, but before going to die in the Low 
Countries he still had time to throw reinforcements into Paris. 
The year 1592 was an unfortunate one for Henry IV. The 
Spaniards entered Brittany, the Langue d'Oc, and Provence, where 



THE SATIRE " MÊNIPÉE " 425 

the)^ gave aid to Charles Emanuel of Savoy in occupying the 
country, while others established themselves elsewhere in France 
as sovereigns with the subsidies furnished by Philip II. 

6. The Excesses of the League. — It was the national spirit 
which threw France, indignant at the anti-patriotic designs of the 
League, precipitately into the arms of the victor of Ivry. While 
the League itself had been for a long time divided, the leader of 
the moderate Leaguers, Mayenne, had for an instant been able 
to dominate the violent faction of the Sixteen, which had decided 
to bestow the crown upon Philip II ; but almost immediately the 
Spanish League triumphed in the accession of Pope Gregory XIV, 
and the arrival of Charles of Guise, the son of '' the Balafré " 
(" the scarred "). 

For several months the pupils of Paris resounded with 
furious declamations. The Sixteen profited by the absence of 
Mayenne to create a committee of ten members whose responsibility 
was to watch over the safety of the State. In each quarter of the 
city a proscription list was drawn up, having before the name of 
each politique one of the letters p. d. c, which indicated who was 
to be hanged {pendu), poniarded {dague) , or driven out {chassé). 
The judge of the tribunal, Brisson, and the counselors, Larcher 
and Tardif, were seized and hanged. Mayenne then hastened 
back from Laon, put four of the Sixteen to death, and so made 
an end of the disorder. 

Conscious, however, that his credit was seriously compromised, 
he tried to re-establish it by calling together the Estates General 
under the pretext of proceeding to the election of a king to re- 
place Cardinal Bourbon. The assembly opened January 26th, 
1593, under the influence of the Spanish faction; but it had diffi- 
culty in coming to an agreement on account of the rival pretensions 
of Mayenne, the young Duke of Guise, and Philip II, who de- 
manded the crown for the Infanta Isabella. If the Estates of the 
League indorsed the principle of the election of a king, the Parle- 
ment placed a check upon their action by insisting upon the 
maintenance of the Salic Law and the fundamental laws of the 
realm, and forbade the surrender of the crown into the hand of 
the foreigner. 

7. The Satire " Ménipée." — A famous satire appeared in 
Paris in 1594, the work of seven Parisian burghers, most of 



426 HENRY IV TO THE EDICT OF NANTES 

them lawyers. Leaving to the Parlement the responsibility for 
combating the public enemies of France by arresting them 
and to Henry the task of overcoming them by force of arms, 
they undertook by means of a biting pen to ridicule the Estates 
of the League, the Spaniards, Maj^enne, and other leaders, sought 
to provoke a definite expression of public opinion, strove to pre- 
vent the election of a king by the League, and endeavored to 
bring the civil wars to a close. 

The work is divided into two parts : ( i ) a kind of prologue 
and introductory scenes; (2) a series of imaginary speeches de- 
livered in the Estates. In the prologue two charlatans appear, 
one a Spaniard, the other a Lorrainer, vaunting the merits of 
their drug which they call the catholicon. " Have no religion 
whatever," they say, " make fun of the priests as much as you 
like, eat meat in Lent, and hold the pope in contempt. You 
need no other absolution than a little bit of the catholicon." 
Then comes the mock procession of the League, which the Parisians 
a little while before had seen in reality. To this succeeds a sketch 
of the well-known figured tapestries with which the meeting 
place of the League was actually hung. The scenes which they 
depict are allegorical representations of the murder of princes, the 
betrayal of native land and the like, and they furnished occasion 
for a mass of satirical allusions. Mayenne, the leader of the 
Guise faction, speaks next. He sets forth and justifies the policy 
of the Guises and his own ambition. Cardinal de Pellevé in his 
macaronic Latin, preaches alternately in behalf of the Lorraine 
princes and the Catholic king. The rector. Rose, harangues the 
assembly in the name of the Parisian clergy, unmasks the in- 
trigues of Mayenne, reveals his perfidies and ridicules all the pre- 
tenders, ironically proposing that they choose as king Guillot 
Fagotin, the churchwarden of Gentilly, a good wine grower and 
an excellent man, who intones beautifully at the lectern and knows 
his office by heart. Then comes the representative of the nobility, 
who sings the praises of the League: has it not made of a small 
commoner a nobleman who receives large stipends, raises the 
taxes, ransoms the peasant, and tortures him in order to make 
him give up all that he has? Finally comes the droll deputy of 
the Third Estate, a certain d'Aubray, who in an admirable speech 
exposes the intrigues of the Leaguers, reviews the miseries of the 



ABJURATION OF HENRY IV 427 

civil war, and urges France to cast herself into the arms of 
Henry IV. 

Brilliant and vigorous as it was, this immortal pamphlet did 
not exert any decisive influence upon the political events of the 
time. The League was already vanquished when it appeared. It 
owed its success rather to the fact that it came at a moment when 
every one was inclined to enjoy its raillery, inasmuch as it ex- 
pressed ideas which it was becoming inconvenient not to share. 
It pleaded a cause already won, but so recently won that a plea 
for it did not seem superfluous. The followers of the king dis- 
covered with pleasure that it expressed their own sentiments, and 
the Leaguers found an apology for their conversion, forced or 
purchased as it may have been. The satire profited by the con- 
sideration which always controls public opinion on the day after 
victory. 

It is not necessary, therefore, to seek in the production any of 
the forces which united men's minds under the legitimate king, 
but it adequately expresses their wishes at the moment of their 
union (Lanson). 

8. The Abjuration of Henry IV (1593). — If France spurned 
in the Leaguers their complicity with Spain upon the one hand, 
on the other hand the people would by no means accept an heretical 
prince. There was but one way out of it : Henry IV must abjure 
his Protestantism. Without question it would cost the son of 
Jeanne d'Albret an effort to abandon his faithful Huguenots who 
had fought for him for so many years, but the wisest of them, 
especially Rosny, urged him to do it. It was pointed out to him 
that his crov/n was otherwise forever lost, his great destinies 
shattered, and France, which he alone was able to save and re- 
generate, was upon the point of destruction. Henry decided at 
length to take '' the perilous leap." 

On the i6th of May, 1593, the king made the statement in 
his Council that he intended to abjure. He called together in 
the city of Mantes a certain number of doctors and prelates, part 
of them of the royal adherents, and part Leaguers, from whom 
he was willing to receive instructions. Henry IV, who had al- 
ready decided in advance to allow himself to be convinced, never- 
theless argued the matter for five hours, making his rejoinder to 
the arguments of the bishops by citations from the Scriptures, but 



428 HENRY IV TO THE EDICT OF NANTES 

he ended by saying, " I, this day, place my soul in your hands. I 
beg of you to be careful, for where you persuade me to go in, 
I cannot come out except by death." 

On the 23d of July, Henry presented himself at Saint-Denis, 
followed by a crowd of princes, great officers of the crown, a 
number of nobles, and a mass of Parisians who braved the severe 
orders of Mayenne, and shouted, "Vive le Roi!" When he 
arrived before the basilica, he knocked, and the doors were 
opened. Under the great portal were assembled the archbishop 
of Bourges and an impressive number of bishops, abbots, and 
members of the religious orders. "Who are you?" demanded 
the archbishop. "I am the king." "What do you seek?" 
" I crave to be received into the bosom of the Church, catholic, 
apostolic, and Roman." Then he bowed the knee, made his 
profession of faith, and swore to " live and die in the Catholic 
religion, to protect it, and defend it against any one whomsoever 
at the risk of his blood and his life." The archbishop then blessed 
him, raised him up, and conducted him before the high altar, 
where the king heard the mass. From this time on Henry IV's 
cause was won, for he had with him a majority of the nation. 

Without entering into a discussion as to the king's good faith 
and the sincerity of his conversion, it must be remembered that 
he was actuated throughout by his devotion to France. 

9. Henry IV, Master of France. — The king's conversion 
struck a terrific blow at the League, and the people considered 
that henceforth the civil war was at an end; but certain persons 
who were called " zealots " refused either to lay down their arms 
or to recognize the new king. The curé, Boucher, pronounced 
and published nine sermons fulminating against the " pretended 
conversion of Henry of Bourbon." " My dog," shouted one 
preacher, "have you, too, been to mass? Draw nigh that you 
likewise may receive the crown." The curé, Cueilly, and the 
Franciscan, Garin, from their lofty pulpits called for an avenger, 
who should deliver France from the tyrant. Their wishes were 
nearly gratified ; an adventurer, named Barrière, came from Lyons 
to Paris for the purpose of killing the king, but he was de- 
nounced at the time, arrested at Melun, and turned over to the 
hangman. 

A trenchant pamphlet, the Dialogue of Maheustre and of 



HENRY IV, MASTER OF FRANCE 429 

Manant^ combated the faw of heredity by appealing from the 
nobility which transformed the kings into idols, to the people who 
should support the cause of Almighty God; but this libel was to 
all intents and purposes the last will and testament of the demo- 
cratic League and the Sixteen. The fanatics themselves became 
amenable to reason, the radicals became reconciled, and the 
ruined peasants inscribed upon their banners this device, touching 
in its simplicity: "We are tired! " Little by little the whole of 
France submitted. 

Henry IV at first negotiated with the governors of the prov- 
inces, who had sought to render themselves independent, pur- 
chased their devotion for a high price, and compelled them, as 
he said, smiling, " to render unto Caesar the things that are 
Caesar's." As for the people of Paris, compelled by circumstances 
and influenced by the examples of Aix, Lyons, Orléans, and 
Bourges, they had but one purpose — to place themselves under the 
rule of Henry. The Politiques and the French Leaguers, in order 
to bring civil war definitively to a close, wished to introduce the 
king into his capital. It was in vain that Mayenne displayed 
tremendous energ}'-, banished from Paris those whom he accused 
of corresponding with the king, and armed against the burghers 
the dregs of the population. 

On the 22d of March, in 1594, the king made his formal entry 
into the capital, followed by five hundred men who " trailed their 
pikes as a sign that the victory had been voluntarily conceded," 
according to the words of a contemporary. The crowd pressed 
about him, acclaiming him. " Let them alone," said Henry to the 
captain of his guards, '' they are famished for the sight of a 
king," On the same day the Spanish garrison obtained leave to 
withdraw, and Henry, when he saw the soldiers of Diego de Ibarra 
and the duke of Feria filing past him, called to them gaily, 
*' Commend me to your master, but do not come back." 

The retaking of the capital of France from the foreigners and 
the Sixteen had cost only the lives of twenty-two lanzknechts and 
two Frenchmen. All violence was forbidden the soldiers upon 
pain of death, and the citizens were respected in their goods, their 
lives, and their honor. By noon order was so well established and 
confidence so well restored that the shops were opened and the 
merchants took their places behind their counters, and the work- 



430 HENRY IV TO THE EDICT OF NANTES 

men at their benches. " After this exit of the foreigners," says 
the Journal de VEstoile, which describes the general rejoic- 
ing, " bonfires were lighted and great demonstrations of joy 
resounded throughout the streets of Paris, and in all quarters of 
the city the cries of ' Long live the king ! ' ' Long live peace 
and liberty ! ' were repeated again and again. All the upper- 
class merchants, the middle, and lower classes of the population 
were entirely satisfied to see themselves released from slavery, 
whether it was that of the factions or the government of the 
Sixteen, and to be again free in the enjoyment of their honor 
and their goods; for they had been delivered from the tyranny 
of the Spaniards and the foreigners, which was considered harsh 
and well-nigh unendurable to Frenchmen." Being from this 
time on king of Paris, Henry IV was actually king of France as 
well. 

10. War Against the Spanish (1595-1598). — Although 
Philip II had given up his hope of obtaining the crown of France, 
he still wished to profit by her troubles that he might keep 
Picardy and Burgundy. Henry IV resolved once for all to put an 
end to the power of his eternal enemy, and declared formal war 
upon him January i6th, 1595. He resolved to carry hostilities 
into Spanish territory in order to turn from his own realm the 
ravages of war, and to assail the old monarch, Philip II, in the 
very heart of his kingdom. He had Luxembourg attacked by 
Marshal Bouillon and the count of Nassau ; Artois by the duke of 
Longueville; and Franche-Comté by a body of six thousand men 
who had passed from the service of the duke of Lorraine to him- 
self, while Lesdiguieres carried on operations in Dauphiny. The 
war, which was carried on in all directions at once, was mainly 
a war of sieges and ambuscades. At first, affairs went favorably 
for France. Marshal Biron almost immediately entered the prov- 
ince of Burgundy, where Mayenne had taken refuge, and quickly 
took possession. 

But at that moment, Don Fernando de Velasco, Governor of 
the Milanais and Constable of Castile, crossed the Alps with ten 
thousand men, and marched upon Franche-Comté. He joined 
Mayenne, took Vesoul, and made preparations for entering Bur- 
gundy. Biron called Henry IV to his aid. The king left Paris 
immediately, and at Dijon placed himself at the head of the royal 



THE EDICT OF NANTES 43 1 

troops. He was making a reconnaissance near Dijon with two or 
three hundred picked horsemen when he fell into the midst of 
an army of twelve thousand men. With that heroic rashness so 
habitual with him, he charged an enemy six times his number, 
risked his life ten times, enabled his other companies to join him, 
and compelled the Constable of Castile to beat a retreat. This 
was the victory of Fontaine-Française. 

For two months he laid Franche-Comté waste, advanced to the 
very gates of Besançon, and was making preparations to annex 
this province to the crown when the Swiss sent to him to desire 
that he would withdraw his army and respect the neutrality of a 
country which was their neighbor. Henry yielded to their request 
for the sake of retaining their alliance. On the other hand, while 
his arms were winning marked advantages upon the eastern fron- 
tier, they were experiencing reverses in the north, where his 
absence made itself but too plainly felt. The enemy even entered 
Amiens by a ruse and threatened to march straight to Paris. 

11. Peace of Vervins (1598). — Henry did not allow himself 
to be overwhelmed by these reverses which '^ seemed to have ex- 
tinguished the royal majesty and the French name." He became 
again the king of Navarre, called together his nobles, had a sum 
of money collected by Sully, and set out to retake Amiens. Dur- 
ing this time Lesdiguières was conducting a brilliant campaign 
against the duke of Savoy, and occupied his lands situated on the 
French side of the Alps. 

The last defenders of the League surrendered one by one. 
Marseilles returned to its allegiance, as did the powerful 
d'Epernon. Mayenne himself made his submission, and the only 
vengeance taken by the king of France for the long resistance of 
the fat Lorrainer " who spent more time at the table than Henry 
did in bed " was to impose upon him a long forced march. Henry 
IV and Philip II, now at the end of their resources, signed the 
treaty of Vervins, May, 1598. Philip II gave up his conquests 
and France and Spain resumed the limits defined nearly forty years 
before by the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, 1559. 

12. The Edict of Nantes (1598).— Having re-established 
external peace, it was necessary to settle the troubles in the in- 
terior. It was this aim which Henry IV pursued by publishing 
the Edict of Nantes, April 15th, 1598. By its terms the re- 



432 HENRY IV TO THE EDICT OF NANTES 

formers obtained the most complete liberty of conscience. They 
were permitted to have schools and were granted the public exer- 
cise of their religion ( i ) in the castles of those lords who had the 
right of high justice; (2) in two places in each bailiwick; (3) in 
the cities and towns where the Calvinist religion had been in exist- 
ence in 1596 and 1597; and (4) in those places where it had been 
permitted in 1577. (5) They were to enjoy the same civil rights 
as the Catholics in everything that concerned marriage, the posses- 
sion of property, and inheritance. In order to assure them an im- 
partial justice, (6) there was established in the Parlement of Paris 
a Chamber of the Edict and in the Parlements of Toulouse, Bor- 
deaux, and Grenoble, chambers composed of judges representing 
both religions. (7) They were likewise permitted to hold any 
public office in the realm. 

Yet the Edict did not accord the Protestants any political 
privilege. It authorized assemblies of a religious character (con- 
sistories and synods) only; but the Protestants acted upon the 
assumption that their political assemblies had not been expressly 
forbidden, and continued to meet. Besides this, they obtained a 
special permission in two particulars, by virtue of which they were 
to hold for eight years the towns and fortified places of which 
they were then in possession; and they were to receive a sum of 
one hundred and eighty thousand crowns to pay their garrisons, 
and forty-five thousand crowns to pay their ministers. These 
concessions constituted the questionable privileges for which the 
Protestants one day had to pay so dearly. 

Such was the celebrated Edict, which became the charter for 
the French reformers during nearly a century. It was accepted, 
however, only after a spirited resistance. The Parlements pro- 
tested, and Henry had to show himself firm with them. He 
made pressing appeals for concord: there should no longer be 
any distinction between Catholics and Huguenots; all should be 
good Frenchmen, and the Catholics should convert the Huguenots 
by the example of their orderly lives. 

It was Henry IV's glory to have been the first sovereign of 
Europe who, by a formal act, had committed himself to the 
principle of religious toleration. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF HENRY IV 

1. France in 1598. — Henry IV had saved France from 
anarchy, had conquered Spain, and had brought the religious wars 
to an end, but his work was far from being done. The misfor- 
tunes which civil and foreign war had imposed upon France were 
frightful. From the rude assaults to which it had been com- 
pelled to submit, the royal power had emerged bruised and 
w^eakened ; attacked continuously by the nobles, who dreamed of 
re-establishing feudalism, and shattered by the democratic reaction 
of the League, the monarchy had lost all its prestige and all its 
authority. Revolt was universal. It appeared among the hu- 
manists, who bestowed eulogies upon Harmodius and Brutus, 
in the Calvinistic pamphlet, which celebrated the deeds of Aod 
and of Jehu, among the Leaguers, who affirmed the superiority 
of the people over the princes, and in the pulpits, where anathe- 
mas resounded against the wicked race of the Valois. 

It was not the monarchy alone, but all France which was 
plunged into disorder, misery, and despair. Thirty-five years 
of civil and foreign war had broken the nation. 

The countryside was depopulated, and the ruined peasant had 
to leave his fields or starve to death on them. He sought refuge 
in the cities, which again opened their gates, and established him- 
self there in spite of the efforts which were made to turn him 
out. Within the walls he encountered the misery of a numerous 
class of citizens and workmen who lacked the very means of 
existence, inasmuch as industry and internal commerce had almost 
entirely disappeared. 

The exasperated peasants at times had accesses of fur}^ as they 
had in the Middle Ages and arose against the marauders and 
freebooters, while the Gantiers in Normandy and the Croquants 
m Limousin formed armies and set about burning castles, and 

433 



434 THE ADMINISTRATION OF HENRY IV 

murdering the gentry. The towns suffered less than the country, 
but without escaping the horrors of the plague and famine. 
Artisans could not work, commerce was interrupted, and mer- 
chandise could not be moved over the ruined highways, on the 
rivers where the tolls had become innumerable, or upon the sea 
where piracy flourished. The ruined and distracted land, never- 
theless, had to bear crushing taxes. The French nation, which 
did not number then more than fifteen million people, paid in 
1598 eighty million livres in taxes, which has been estimated at 
seventy-five francs of the present time, as the actual sum which 
each inhabitant had to furnish. The distress of the peasants, the 
ruin of the merchants, the scandalous avarice of the king, the 
frightful confusion of his administration, all the public service 
in disorder, the thievery of the financiers, and the incapacity and 
supineness of the officers who had remained honest, this is what 
is revealed to us by all the contemporary documents. 

2. Sully. — Henry IV had undertaken to save France from 
ruin ; but with the habits which war and pleasure had fastened 
upon him, could he do what was required to bring to a conclu- 
sion a task which demanded both patience and organization? 
It was indispensable to his success that there should be found 
some one who would second his efforts. He understood this 
and cast about for men to supply his want. 

Devoted collaborators he found whose merit he recognized 
and whose services he recompensed, and he gathered around him 
those who had always faithfully served his cause; but the king 
found his most valuable and devoted ally in Baron de Rosny, 
Duke of Sully. There was a striking contrast between the mas- 
ter and the subject, between the sovereign and the minister, the 
one severe, the other easy-going; the duke rigidly economical, the 
king liberal, at times, to folly; the prince yielding to all the 
allurements of passion, the minister inflexibly submitting every- 
thing to the dictates of reason; both full of sincerity, but in 
different fashions; Henry IV with an abandon, sometimes cal- 
culated, and a smiling bonhoinie. Sully with more reserve and 
authority, both brave to rashness, having formed in the same ex- 
periences and upon the same battlefields the bonds of an enduring 
friendship. 

This devotion did not prevent him, on the other hand, from 



THE GOVERNMENT OF HENRY IV 435 

looking after his own affairs, for he had found the means of 
enriching himself by the profits of the war, and by shrewd specu- 
lations. He was never indifferent to money, and when he found 
by chance, at Cahors, in a house which had been given over to 
pillage, a small box full of gold coins, he considered it a good 
prize, and made no concealment of the fact. Outside the revenue, 
ninety-seven thousand livres, which his office brought him, and 
the sixty thousand livres which his lands returned to him, he 
had, Huguenot though he was, three abbeys and a certain number 
of benefices which yielded him forty-five thousand livres of income ; 
but, nevertheless, what he won, he won openly, and while he had 
become accustomed to give a great deal in bribes, he took nothing 
himself. 

A seasoned captain, efficient especially in the artillery, he ren- 
dered Henry IV the most eminent services, and influenced all 
branches of the administration. Having become Superintendent 
of the Finances, in 1599, he occupied himself at the same time 
with the affairs of the army as general, with the details of the 
fortifications as engineer, with the artillery as Grand Master, with 
the means of communication on the highways as Grand Surveyor, 
and with the beautifying of the city of Paris as Superintendent of 
Buildings. 

3. The Government of Henry IV. — The king, to whom 
was thus reserved the task of wiping out the traces of civil war 
and of renewing the face of the country, had a vast intelligence, 
a disposition of great flexibility, but an invincible determination. 
To the sagacity of a statesman, he joined the attractiveness of 
manners, the adroitness of mind, the charming imagination, and 
the sovereign good sense, which made him the most perfect of 
French kings. Nevertheless, his reign, so admired and from so 
many points of view so admirable, was more profitable to the 
wealth of France than to her institutions. If he was too mod- 
erate to love despotism, Henry IV, nevertheless, had a passion 
for the rights of the monarchy, the triumph of which his wars 
had assured him. 

Like Charles V, who was afraid of the Estates General in 
1356, he mistrusted the Estates General. He kept in mind, 
during his whole reign those of Blois and of Paris, and refused 
to convoke them. He contented himself with assembling at Rouen, 



436 THE ADMINISTRATION OF HENRY IV 

on November 4th, 1596, the famous Assembly of Notables, which 
was the point of departure of all his reforms. It consisted of 
nine deputies of the clergy, nineteen of the nobility, and fifty-two 
of the Third Estate. Henry IV spoke there with that bonhomie 
and that familiarity which he knew so well how to introduce 
into his speeches. He said that he wished " to place himself, in 
tutelage, within their hands, desiring that they should take no 
account of kings, or graybeards, or victories." The assembly 
interpreted the words of the king a little too literally, and wished 
to nominate a Conseil de Raison responsible for the administration 
of half the public revenue ; but the attempt was not a success, and 
the deputies themselves besought the king to resume the pleni- 
tude of his. power. 

The French monarchy, from then on, remained absolute. 
The Roman law and the customary law united in affirming that 
complete authority of the king and his independence with respect 
to all his powers, which the Institutes of Loisel sum up in these 
short and clear maxims : what the king wishes, the law wishes ; the 
king holds only from God, and by his sword ; the king never dies ; 
and all men in his realm are his subjects. 

If France escaped religious unity she passionately longed for 
monarchical unity. The nation had departed from absolutism 
under Francis I ; it returned to absolutism under Henry IV, and 
the sons of the men who had formed the League showed them- 
selves ready to bow their necks under the yoke of Richelieu and 
of Louis XIV. 

4. Classes of Society. — " Royalty under Henry IV," says 
Augustin Thierry, " appeared clearly under its modern form, that 
of an administrative sovereignty, absolute in law and in fact." 
The king governed with the aid of his Council, his great officers, 
and his secretaries of state. In the provinces the royal power was 
administered by the governors, the intendants, and by the bailiffs, 
and all classes of the nation were equally subject to the omnipo- 
tence of the central authority. 

The nobility had attempted to reconquer its independence, and 
the governors of the provinces sought to become actual sovereigns. 
Henry IV succeeded in reconquering from them his entire realm, 
piece by piece, established new governors, placed by their side his 
intendants, and succeeded likewise in destroying this new feudalism. 



FINANCIAL REFORMS 437 

Under the favor of the civil wars the towns had attempted to 
organize themselves into small autonomous estates and actual 
municipal republics. The king, little by little, brought them 
back to obedience, granted them permission to administer their 
own affairs, and refused to build fortresses to overawe them 
'^ not wishing," he said, " to have citadels except in the hearts of 
his subjects," but he none the less repressed every ambition look- 
ing to municipal autonomy. 

He imposed the same dependence, but also the same dignity upon 
the clergy. Having become a true Catholic since his conversion, 
he was observed following, in a driving rainstorm, a procession 
which had been organized in more than three hundred towns for 
the purpose of re-establishing the Catholic religion. Yet if he 
meant to be a Catholic, he intended to be a Gallican Catholic, to 
safeguard and to maintain the prerogatives of the crown, and to 
give to France peace and liberty of conscience, but also to assure 
to royalty omnipotence in religious matters. 

In a word, Henry IV set himself by every means to bring 
back to the support of the crown all classes of the nation, to 
attach them completely to the crown and to establish the unity of 
the French monarchy in order that he might labor afterwards for 
its power and its greatness. 

5. Financial Reforms. — The finances of France were in a 
sad state. In order to support the war with the League, the 
king had been obliged to contract heavy debts, and had often 
been compelled to abandon to his creditors, or to his servitors, con- 
siderable parts of the public revenue. The agents, named by those 
to whom the taxes had been granted, insolently levied upon the 
people double what was due. There was, besides, no regular 
annual system of expenses. The state lived from day to day 
without any rigorous accounting, and as the expenses far exceeded 
the receipts, the government from year to year more and more 
fell into debt. 

The greatest confusion reigned in the collection of the taxes; 
for, while the taille was levied directly by king's agents, the other 
taxes, the gabelles, the aids, the toils, etc., were farmed out. The 
farmers agreed to pay to the government a fixed sum for a certain 
part of the public revenue, and they gathered for themselves all 
that they could from the taxpayers. The taille was badly appor- 



438 THE ADMINISTRATION OF HENRY IV 

tioned, and badly raised. Since 1588 it had been twenty millions of 
livres in arrears, and the public debt reached three hundred and 
forty-eight millions of livres, a sum which corresponds to about one 
billion two hundred fifty-four millions of francs of the present 
day. Sully, as Superintendent, set to work with great zeal. He 
set himself a threefold task: (i) to organize a just collection of 
the taxes, (2) to increase the receipts, and (3) to diminish the 
expenses. 

He first applied himself to the task of taking from foreign 
princes and French lords the collection of the taxes which the 
State had abandoned to them. He withdrew from the grand- 
duke of Florence, the queen of England, the count Palatine, the 
duke of Wurtemberg, the town of Strasburg, the Swiss, and the 
Venetians that part of the taxes which had been pledged 
to them. Henceforth, no impost could be levied except by 
virtue of a royal ordinance registered in the Parlement. The 
governor of the provinces and the lords could not make any levy 
for their own profit. Sully established a special chamber created 
for the prosecution of malversations. He resumed those parts of 
the royal domain which had been alienated, compelled financial 
agents to a strict accountability, obliged rich citizens, who had had 
themselves ennobled, to pay the taille, and suppressed a great 
number of financial offices. He canceled the leases of the old 
farmers of the taxes, and re-organized revenues upon conditions 
more favorable to the treasury. He remitted to the people the 
arrears of the taille from 1589, or found the means of reducing 
the taille by six millions of livres by having all of it paid to 
him at longer intervals. With a revenue which was twenty-three 
million livres in 1597, rose for seven years to thirty million and 
redescended in 1609 to twenty-six million, Sully paid one hundred 
million of debts, repurchased for thirty-five million portions of 
the domain, and amassed a reserve of twenty million in the 
Bastile. France thus became the leading money power of 
Europe. 

Among the financial measures of the Superintendent, there was 
one which had important consequences: this is the paulette, so- 
called from the financier Paulet, who appears to have inspired it. 
Dating from the XV century, the offices of justice and finance 
had been sold by the king. The possessors of these positions 



AGRICULTURE 439 

might sell them again, with this reservation, that the office reverted 
to the king if the purchaser died v^ithin forty days after the 
agreement. The paulette suppressed this reservation, and the 
officers of justice and of finance could transmit their office to their 
heirs upon the condition that they should pay every year to the 
treasury the sixtieth part of the purchase price of the office itself. 

6. Agriculture. — In his book Economies Royales, Sully wrote 
the famous maxim: "Grazing and husbandry are the two breasts 
from which France draws nourishment, the true mines and 
treasures of Peru." Agriculture, in fact, was the constant object 
of the solicitude of Henry and of his minister. It had fallen as 
low as the finances, and the king, who stated this in his declaration 
of I595> undertook to revive it. Henry, without doubt, was 
neither a saint, nor a philanthropist guided by the highest con- 
ceptions of theoretical morality and the disinterested love of 
humanity. 

He was, none the less, a good king who knew how to grasp 
and to practise his calling as sovereign and statesman. He loved 
the country people in the midst of whom he had lived until he 
was forty years of age, preserved a manner of great familiarity 
with humble people, was nat embarrassed with them, and knew 
how to put them at their ease. " When he goes about the coun- 
try," says his historian, Mathieu, " he stops to talk with people, 
asks the peasants where they come from, where they are going, 
what goods they are carrying, what is the price of each thing, 
and, remarking that it seemed to many that this popular ease 
was ofifensive to the royal dignity, he once said, '' Kings hold them- 
selves dishonored if they know what the value of a crown is. I 
would like to know the value of a Hard, how much trouble 
these poor people have to get it, in order that they may be taxed 
according to what they are able to bear." 

The declaration of 1595 protected the laborers against pursuit 
by the State and by creditors; it forbade the attachment of their 
bodies, the seizure of their furniture and their implements of 
agriculture. The declaration of 1597 protected the peasants 
against the extortions of the soldiery. There was also enacted 
legislation which favored the raising of cattle, the tilling of the 
fields and of the vines ; the exploitation of the forest was regulated, 
the peasants were permitted to sell their grain even out of the 



440 THE ADMINISTRATION OF HENRY IV 

country, and parishes were permitted to buy back again such 
communal property as had been ahenated during the wars. 

7. Industries. — In spite of the miseries of the civil war, 
luxury developed in France in a marvelous fashion. Silk was sub- 
stituted, to be sure, for woolen in the clothing of men and women ; 
but three-quarters of the objects of manufacture of which there was 
need in France — woolen cloth, silks, linen cloth, serges, leather, and 
knitted goods — were manufactured abroad. France was thus tribu- 
tary to Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and England. The manu- 
factures of luxuries were ruined, the industries of the first im- 
portance were much endangered, the body of artisans was in great 
confusion, and the workers and their patrons were each day 
more divided in their feelings and interests. Henry IV resolved 
to do for industry what he had already done for agriculture. 

Unfortunately he was not able to come to an agreement in this 
matter with Sully. His minister, in fact, without despising the 
old national industries such as linen and wool and the exploitation 
of the mines, did not favor occupations of Italian or Flemish origin. 
He retained against luxury his prejudices as a soldier, a gentle- 
man, and a Calvinist, and pretended that France " is not suited 
to such baubles." The rough Huguenot had a horror for them 
as '* superfluities and excesses in matter of dress " ; preferring the 
labor of the fields which produced good soldiers, to the labor in 
factories which keeps one from the open air. Henry IV allowed 
him his say, contented himself with responding by a few pleas- 
antries, and sought elsewhere for helpers more amenable and less 
prejudiced. 

The chief among these, with Oliver de Serres, was Barthélémy 
de Laffemas. Protestant like Sully, Laffemas had begun as a 
tailor to the king of Navarre, and obtained, in 1598, the title of 
valet de chambre ordinary to the king. He presented to the nobles 
of Rouen a great number of his memoirs upon commerce and 
manufacture, and these theories attracted the attention of the king, 
who had them examined by a Council of Commerce, and bestowed 
on Laffemas the title of Controller General of Commerce in 
France. There then began an important task, the organization 
of national industry. 

The king encouraged the culture of the mulberry in the south, 
in the districts of Tours, Orléans, Paris, and Lyons, and had 



COMMERCE AND THE CANALS 441 

them planted even in the garden of the Tuileries and in the park 
of Fontainebleau. He established places for the raising of silk- 
worms, for the winding of silk into skeins, and the spinning of the 
cocoons in several of his royal castles, under the direction of the 
Italian Balbiani. He organized manufactures in Lj^ons, revived 
those of Tour, Montpellier, and Nîmes, and gave titles of nobility 
to the first French manufacturers who made fabrics of silk. This 
success was memorable, and France found herself endowed hence- 
forth with a great industry. Laiïemas fittingly felicitated the 
king upon having created this important source of wealth, and 
of having given to his subjects *' the shuttle, as formidable to 
foreigners as the sword." 

Besides this Henry IV established factories for the making of 
cloth of gold and of silver at Paris, brought in an artisan from 
the Low Countries, Paul Pinchon, who introduced into France 
the secret of the preparation of materials from cotton, and be- 
stowed upon a citizen of Lyons, John of Nesme, a brevet for 
spinning cotton by a mechanical process. He had Flemish work- 
men brought into France, whom he established upon the banks of 
the Bievre, in the house of Gobelins, in order that they might 
devote themselves to the manufacture of tapestries. This was 
the cradle of the industry which was to become one of the 
artistic glories of France in the XVII century. The dyeing of 
gilded and embossed leather, which had been up to that time the 
monopoly of Flanders and of Spain, was imitated henceforth in 
the workshops of the suburbs of Saint- Jacques and Saint-Honore; 
linen was imported also from Holland, crêpe from Bologna, and 
glass and crystal-ware from Venice. The exploitation of the 
mines, checked by the religious wars, was reorganized and regu- 
lated; iron was obtained in the majority of the provinces, lead 
in the Cevennes, tin in Normandy, copper in the Pyrenees, silver 
in the Langue d'Oc, and gold in Bresse and the Lyonnaise. The 
corporations were preserved, but all the artisans were allowed to 
work freely at their own callings upon the payment of a tax of 
thirty livres (1597). 

8. Commerce and the Canals. — In order that industry 
might be prosperous, it was necessary that there should be an 
outlet for it and adequate means of communication: Henry IV 
and Sully set about to furnish these. The king signed treaties 



442 THE ADMINISTRATION OF HENRY IV 

of commerce with England, Holland, Turkey, Spain, Morocco, 
the Italian states, and Germany. He favored the colonial ex- 
pansion of France, and La Ravallière and Rasilly attempted to 
establish themselves in Guiana, while Champlain in Canada laid 
the foundations of the city of Quebec, and a company was founded 
for the purpose of carrying on commerce in the East Indies. 

In the interior, ways of communication multiplied. Sully, as 
Grand Surveyor of France, repaired the old highwa3^s, had new 
ones projected, erected numerous bridges, and set out along the 
great highways rows of trees which the peasants called " rosnys." 
Attempts to construct canals had already been made under 
Francis I, and in the reign of Henry II Adam Craponne had dug 
a famous irrigation canal. Henry IV and Sully were in agree- 
ment as to a vast project which was to join into one system of 
communication the basins of all the great rivers. Craponne and 
Renaut proposed to dig a navigable artery between Bordeaux 
and Narbonne, and Joseph Scaliger describes this proposal in his 
discourse upon the Joining of the Seas. Canals were begun to con- 
nect the Aisne with the Vesle, the Clain with Vienne. Hughues 
Crosnier, by means of a canal at Briare, brought the Loire into 
communication with the Seine. The canal of Burgundy was 
begun, and a plan was made of one which should unite the Saône 
and the Loire. 

9. The Army.— Henry IV, likewise gave himself up to the 
task of organizing a military force sufficient to defend the realm 
from without, and to assure peace within. He sought, from the 
first, to render the army national by having Frenchmen compose 
it. Without doubt foreigners, Swiss and Germans, were still 
very numerous there, but in an army of thirty-seven thousand 
men, there were not more than twelve thousand Swiss or lanz- 
knechts. 

He further set about having a rigorous discipline maintained in 
this army, corrected the soldiers for their pillaging and bloody 
mode of life, increased their pay, assured the future of the old 
soldiers by establishing a home of refuge, exempted from all taxes 
the widows and orphans of military men, and in this way raised 
and dignified the position of the soldier. He founded two establish- 
ments for instruction, one of which was at La Flèche for young 
men who were destined for the army, established at the court 



THE ARMY 443 

an academy or military school for young nobles, and instituted the 
military order of Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel. His army in- 
cluded at first the cavalry, which continued to be the important 
arm of the service. Later the infantry began to assume great 
importance. Sully, named Grand Master of Artillery, got to- 
gether four hundred cannon at the Arsenal, and a considerable 
development w^as given to military engineering and the art of 
attacking fortified places. 

It is with such means and advisers and under conditions at first 
so depressing that Henry worked for the regeneration of France. 
The success which attended his efforts is beyond any possible 
question, and with his accession the progress of the central power 
moves swiftly forward. His reign brings to a close a century 
marked by the bloody strife of the religious wars in France. It 
ushers in a century characterized by the disappearance of the last 
trace of feudal opposition to the crown, and by wars of aggression 
waged by France against her neighbors — a century which cul- 
minates in the absolute power of the monarch. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

CENTRAL, EASTERN, AND NORTHERN EUROPE IN 
THE XVI CENTURY 

1. General Conditions. — By the close of the XVI century, 
Italy, which continued to be divided, and Spain, which was com- 
pletely exhausted, had both lost their preponderant positions in 
Europe. Central Europe at the same time was profoundly modi- 
fied by the influence of the Reformation. In eastern Europe the 
rule of the Turks became stronger in spite of the vices of their 
political and social organization ; in the North the Scandinavian 
States had assumed the form which they were to keep until the 
XIX century; and finally the Slavs of Russia began to par- 
ticipate in the aifairs of the western world. 

2. Switzerland. — Central Europe consisted of the Swiss, the 
numerous sovereignties of the German Empire, and the German 
domains of the house of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. The 
Swiss confederation emerged from the period of the Reformation 
nearly established, although its legal existence in Europe dates 
only from the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Certain free towns, 
like Geneva, were united with the Cantons by treaties of alliance 
only. Lucerne, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Uri, and Fribourg, thanks 
to the influence of the great Milanese saint, Charles Borromeo, 
remained attached to the Holy See by the Peace of Gold (1586), 
and it was from them that the kings of France recruited their 
Swiss troops. The Protestant cantons speaking the German 
language followed the example of Zurich and devoted themselves 
to banking or to manufacture, while at the same time they drew 
within their walls the Protestant scholars who were persecuted 
in Austria or in Italy. 

3. The Emperors (1555-1598). — The political unity of 
Switzerland was far from being close in the XVI century, and 
that of the German Empire was in very much the same condi- 

444 



THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION IN GERMANY 445 

tion. Ferdinand I (1555-1564), a prudent and tolerant man, 
endeavored to have the peace of Augsburg respected in spite of 
the hostile disposition of the Catholics and the covetousness of 
the Protestants, and his son, Maximilian II (1564-1576) followed 
a like course. 

As archdukes of Austria they had to compel dissimilar peoples 
to live together, Germans, Styrians, Tyrolese, Carnians, and 
Carinthians, as kings of Bohemia they had to direct the national 
and religious suceptibilities of the Czechs, and as kings of Hungary 
they lost their land before the invasion of the Turks, a conquest 
which was rendered the more easy by the hatred of the Transyl- 
vanians and patriot Magyars for the German dynasty. 

4. The Religious Question in Germany (1555-1598).— 
Religious difficulties further served to increase the embarrassment 
of the Hapsburgs. They had for their point of departure the 
ecclesiastical reservation and the principle cujus regio ejus religio. 
Numerous conflicts at once arose as to its application. The arch- 
bishop of Cologne, Gebhardt Truchsess of Waldburg, became 
Calvinist, claimed the right to hold the electorate, and had to be 
driven out by armed force. Then the Protestant cantons of 
Strasburg had to be forced to accept a Catholic bishop in place 
of the Protestant administrator of the house of Zollern and an 
actual war was undertaken against the imperial city of Aix-la- 
Chapelle in order to compel it to expel the Calvinists. Likewise 
the free city of Donauwerth, almost wholly Protestant, was de- 
livered over to the leader of the Catholic party, Maximilian of 
Bavaria, who banished the reformed religion from it. The 
Bavarian princes, in the name of their faith, assumed the right, 
besides, of occupying all ecclesiastical electorates and bishoprics, 
and of taking over the " priest's lane," as the bank of the Rhine 
was called, because it was bordered by so many religious prin- 
cipalities. 

These events, however, belong rather less to the period which 
they close than to the epoch of the Thirty Years' War to which 
they look forward. The religious controversies, which turned 
about the question of the church lands, were further complicated 
by the political situation which embarrassed the ruler of Ger- 
many. The emperor was menaced by the discontent of the Czechs 
of Bohemia, while in Hungary the formation of the principality 



446 CENTRAL, EASTERN, NORTHERN EUROPE 

of Transylvania and the progress of the Turks never permitted 
him to concentrate his w^hole attention upon the affairs of 
Germany. 

5. The Turks. The Predecessors of Solyman (1481- 
1520). — The sultan successors of Mohammed II had seemed at 
first to give up the idea of penetrating further into Europe. 
Bajazet II, son of the conqueror, made an arrangement by which 
his brother Djem, w^ho w^as exiled among the knights of Rhodes, 
should be confined as a hostage, either in Asia or at Bourganeuf 
in France in one of the commanderies of the Order. Then later 
Pope Innocent VIII took him, and finally Alexander VI, w^ho sur- 
rendered him in a dying condition to Charles VIII. Bajazet 
was compelled to abdicate by his son, Selim I. The new sultan, 
the murderer of two of his brothers, after a raid into Persia, 
defeated the Mamelukes of Egypt, entered Cairo, and caused 
himself to be recognized as the commander of the faithful even at 
Mecca. He died suddenly in 1520, leaving behind him a terrible 
reputation for cruelty. 

6. Solyman the Magnificent (1520-1566). The Siege of 
Rhodes.- — His son, *' Solyman the Magnificent" (Suleyman I), 
in spite of his vices and crimes, remains the most illustrious rep- 
resentative of the Osmanli sultans. With him, the Turkish at- 
tacks along the Danube and against the Christians became more 
continuous and dangerous. In 1521 he took possession of Belgrade, 
which the Servian princes had surrendered to Hungary. In 1522, 
having come to an understanding with the Spanish faction in the 
Order of the Knights of Rhodes, which was discontented with 
the election of a French Grand Master, he laid siege to the city of 
Rhodes and employed against it bombs, used here for the first 
time. It was only when his powder and provisions were becoming 
exhausted that the Grand Master at the supplication of the in- 
habitants consented to sign an honorable capitulation, December 
25th, 1522. The Rhodians obtained religious liberty, and the 
sultan refused to his Janissaries the traditional three days 
pillage. 

7. Solyman in Hungary (1526-1566). — The great preoccu- 
pation of the sultan was henceforth the conquest of Hungary — an 
enterprise which occupied him for forty years, and he died at the 
task. Louis II, the son of the Polish Ladislaus (VI), Jagellon, 



TURKISH DIPLOMACY 447 

then twenty years old, was king of Bohemia and of Hungary. 
He was killed at the battle of Mohacs on the Danube, where 
Solyman was the victor in 1526, and the Transylvanian John 
Szapolyai was crowned king of Hungary in spite of the treaties 
of reciprocity, which assured the crown of Saint Stephen to Ferdi- 
nand of Austria, brother of the Emperor Charles V, and in spite 
of the rights of Queen Maria, widow of Louis IL 

Solyman, upon the request of Szapolyai, then marched upon 
Vienna, and besieged it unsuccessfully in 1529; but he had his 
protege crowned at Buda(-Pesth), and in 1532 advanced as far 
as Styria. After the death of Szapolyai, his widow, Isabella of 
Poland, and the leader of the national party, Martinuzzi, begged 
the Turks to recognize as king of Hungary his son, John Sigis- 
mund, who was still a child, but the sultan was determined upon 
establishing himself in Hungary and relegated the young prince 
to Transylvania. Martinuzzi, in the meantime having become 
reconciled with Ferdinand of Austria, made some headway against 
the Turks until 1551, when the archduke became suspicious of 
Martinuzzi's fidelity and put him to death. 

Solyman profited by the indignation of the patriot Magyars, 
recognized John Sigismund Szapolyai, in a brilliant campaign 
occupied the entire Hungarian plain between the Danube and 
the Theiss, and did not meet with any serious resistance except 
in the north of Zigeth, which was heroically defended by the count 
Zrinyi. The sultan laid siege to the town, before which he 
died in 1566. 

8. Turkish Diplomacy in the XVI Century. — The inva- 
sion of Hungary was a consequence of the friendly relation be- 
tween Turkey and France. Diplomatic advances had been made 
under Charles VIII and under Louis XII, but after Pavia, Louise 
of Savoy and Francis I requested an alliance with Solyman. The 
sultan promised his haughty protection, and with the new envoy, 
Rinçon, he drew up an actual convention looking toward common 
action against Charles V. In 1534 Jean de la Forêt was ordered 
to bring about a diversion of Turks in the Mediterranean, and 
the fleets of the corsair Mussulmans were placed at the disposal 
of France. 

At the same time the Grand Vizir Ibrahim granted to the 
French certain judicial and commercial privileges, the " capitula- 



448 CENTRAL, EASTERN, NORTHERN EUROPE 

tions," and Francis I was to have a permanent embassy in Con- 
stantinople. In 1540, Rinçon was assassinated at Milan in the 
course of a new mission, and his successor secured the hostile 
appearance of the corsair Babarossa off Nice (1543). Under 
Henry H a new treaty was signed (1553), whose chief result 
was the combined action upon the Italian coast of the Turkish 
fleet and the galleys of the French, a manœuver which exerted its 
own influence upon signing of the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis 
(1559). 

9. The Family of Solyman. — Solyman may be reproached, 
perhaps justly, for having lived too much in the interior of his 
palace. He was compelled to intrust himself to his guard of 
Bostandgis after a revolt of the Janissaries, which was repressed 
chiefly by the efforts of a subaltern officer, Ibrahim, of whom he 
made a Grand Vizir. Solyman then became suspicious of him, 
and in spite of his service and his talents, had this same Ibrahim 
put to death. 

From then on he yielded to the influence of a Kouresmian 
favorite, whose surname Roxalana betrays her Russian origin, 
and she succeeded in obtaining the title of Sultana. In conjunc- 
tion with the new Grand Vizir, Rustem, she aroused the sus- 
picions of the sultan against his eldest son, Mustapha, whom she 
caused to be strangled before his father's eyes. One of her own 
sons, Djihanghir, who loved his half-brother deeply, died of 
grief, and Roxalana survived him only a short time. The favorite 
son of the sultan, Bajazet, roused to revolt and then denounced 
by Selim, another of his brothers, was delivered up to Solyman 
and likewise perished. These tragedies, which were renewed in 
each reign, made tyrants of the sultans rendered at the same time 
cruel and self-indulgent by the life of the harem. Solyman at 
least loved writers and letters and one of the greatest Turkish 
poets, Abd-Ul-Baki, was his protege. 

10. Solyman's Successors. — The successors of Solyman were 
Selim II, Murad HE Mahomet HI, and Achmet I. Selim II, 
" the Sot," contemptible on account of his vices and especially on 
account of his drunkenness, owed a great deal to a remarkable 
Grand Vizir, Sokkoli. During his reign a revolt of Yemen was 
crushed, and Cyprus, wrested from the Venetians, remained in the 
possession of the Turks in spite of the great victory of Don Juan 



THE UNION OF CALMAR 449 

of Austria at Lepanto (1571). Exasperated by that defeat, the 
Mussulmans were making preparation for the massacre of the 
Christians in Constantinople, but renounced this plan in the face 
of the intrepid attitude adopted by the French ambassador. Selim 
died in consequence of his excesses (1574). 

His successor Murad HI was a veritable ferocious beast, and 
it was he who put to death nineteen of his brothers. Driven out 
of Moldavia by the chieftain, Michael the Brave, he beat back 
in north Hungary a crusade of Germans, Poles, and Hungarians; 
but his progress in Hungary was checked by the troubles which 
broke out in Asia and at Constantinople, during which he died. 
His son, Achmet I, succeeded him at the age of fourteen, amidst 
desperate circumstances. Asia was in open revolt, and the Persians 
so threatened the Turkish Empire that it became necessary for 
the Turks to consent to treat upon a footing of equality with 
the weak German Emperor Rudolf H. Later, Achmet attempted 
to profit by the difficulties of Austria, but he was unable to re- 
establish the prestige of the Osmanli beyond the Danube, and 
he accorded to the ambassador of Henry IV a renewal of the 
capitulations and a treaty of commerce. Finally his reign ended 
in the midst of a palace revolution and uprising of the soldiers. 
Henceforth, the Turks were still good soldiers, but they no 
longer had moral and political guidance. It was thus that the 
rapid decline of the Ottomans saved central Europe from a Moslem 
conquest in the XVI century. 

11. Denmark (1340-1439). — The two Scandinavian nations 
in the north parted company at the time of the Reformation. 
In the XIII century, the Danish ruling dynasty had possessed 
Jutland, the Islands, Seeland, and finally Scania, the southern part 
of Sweden. The tyranny of the two upper classes, however, the 
nobles and the clergy, toward the merchants and especially toward 
the peasant, whose rôle up to this time had been considerable, 
brought about at the beginning of the XIV century a long period 
of anarchy, during which the Germans, having driven back the 
Slav-Wends from Ditmarsh, and from Mecklenburg, extended 
their dominion into Schleswig, Holstein, and even into Jut- 
land. 

12. The Union of Calmar. — Waldemar III, Atterdag (the 
Restorer), during his reign of thirty-five years, from 1340 to 



450 CENTRAL, EASTERN, NORTHERN EUROPE 

I375j supported by the people, reawakened the national spirit in 
Denmark, and imposed a tax upon the nobles. He married one 
of his daughters. Marguerite, to Haakon (VI), prince, then 
king, of Sweden and Norway. Marguerite Waldemarsdatter, or 
" the Great," governed Denmark as regent in the name of her 
son, Olaf, who died before her (1387). Upon the death of her 
husband she overcame a German pretender, Albert of Meck- 
lenburg, and ruled Sweden and Norway as a sovereign until 
1412. 

** Madam the King," as she was sometimes called, signed the 
Union of Calmar in 1397. This celebrated act was not inspired 
by the necessity of uniting the three Scandinavian nations, which 
we today call Scandinavia, for the defense of northern Europe, 
but in order to assure to the kings of Denmark the actual control 
of three realms. Sweden and Norway were not treated as equals, 
but were reduced to vassalage, and Marguerite found that even 
then they still preserved too much autonomy. 

13. German Kings in Denmark. Christian II (1435- 
1559). — From the time of her nephew Erik the Pomeranian, 
who succeeded her, and who was deposed in 1439, Sweden at- 
tempted to regain its independence. Christopher HI of Bavaria, 
who followed as king, exercised scarcely any authority outside 
of Denmark. He died without children, and the new king, 
Christian I (Christiern of Oldenburg) the head of a collateral 
branch, who brought the Germans in with him, devoted himself 
to the task of annexing the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, 
rather than to the maintenance of the Union of Calmar. 

After his son, John, his grandson Christian II was the last 
prince of the house of Oldenburg. Pitiless and absolute, sub- 
mitting to the influence of two women of the lower class, the 
Norwegian Sigbrid and her daughter Dikvelde, who surrounded 
him with obscure people, he paid no regard to the diet (Rigsraad) 
in which the privileged orders were still in the ascendency. By 
legislation which was favorable to the peasants and to the towns- 
people, he attempted to abolish serfdom and to summon the people 
to a participation in political life. He multiplied schools and 
favored the Lutheran reform movement, but really in the hope 
of secularizing the possessions of the clergy. From 15 18 to 1520 
he succeeded in taking possession of Sweden and sought to 



DENMARK TO END OF THE XVI CENTURY 451 

terrorize the country by leaders of the nobility and of the clergy in 
the massacre of Stockholm {Blodbad, the bath of blood). This 
cruelty ministered to the hatred of the aristocracy on both sides 
of the Sund, a revolution drove Christian from Copenhagen, 
April 14th, 1523, and June 7th, 1523, Gustavus Vasa was elected 
king of Sweden. That was the end of the Union of Calmar. 
It had lasted, in name at least, for one hundred and twenty- 
six 5'ears. From this time on Sweden was ruled by her own 
kings. 

Christian II now returned to Catholicism for the purpose of 
obtaining the support of his brother-in-law, Charles V (he had 
married the sister of the emperor, Isabella of Austria). He even 
succeeded in raising in Germany a band of lanzk?iechtSj with 
which he conquered Norway, but in an interview with Frederick, 
Duke of Holstein, who succeeded him as king of Denmark, he 
was made prisoner and did not die until 1559. At first he was 
closely guarded, then kept in semi-captivity. He was a centralizer 
in the country in which the aristocracy was still all-powerful, a 
circumstance which explains the fact that his cruelty, which was 
nevertheless bej^ond question, has been exaggerated. The Danish 
clergy and the nobility, who assumed to themselves the right of 
designating the successor of Christian II, named his uncle, Fred- 
erick of Holstein, as Frederick I of Denmark (1523-1533). 

14. Denmark to the End of the XVI Century. The 
Holstein Dynasty. — The Rigsraad resumed all its influence; 
serfdom was re-established, and the rapid development of the 
Reformation had no other result than to assure to the cadets of 
the great families the episcopal titles and possessions of the 
churches. Christian HI (1533-1559), son of Frederick I, sus- 
tained against the partisans of Christian II a three years' war 
(The Counts' War), and as victor suppressed the Catholic re- 
ligion and brought about the secularization of the ecclesiastical 
domains. His son, Frederick II (1559-1588), who successively 
sought the alliance of more than ten European princesses, among 
them Elizabeth Tudor, Marie Stuart, and Margaret of Parma, 
married Sophia of Mecklenburg, and turned over the government 
to the nobility. He was the friend of the great astronomer, 
Tycho-Brahe, for whom he constructed the observatory of Urani- 
borg upon the island of Hven. 



452 CENTRAL, EASTERN, NORTHERN EUROPE 

15. Sweden Prior to Gustavus Vasa. — Upon the extinction 
of the dynasty of the Folkungs by the death of Olaf, the son of 
Elaakon and of Marguerite Waldemarsdatter, the Danish kings 
had taken over the direction of the affairs of Scandinavia. Sweden 
v^/as at that time governed by the Council of State, the Rigsraad, 
and the Estates of the nobility, the clergy, and the merchants, who 
deliberated apart, while the person who presided over the assembly 
of the nobility, or the Senate (Herrdag), was the Grand Mar- 
shal of the nobilitv. 

In 1448 Karl Knutsson, who was in possession of that high 
dignity, assumed, turn about, the title of regent and king. Under 
the name of Charles VIII he carried on against John, the king 
of Denmark, a struggle which was often unfavorable to Sweden. 
But after him, Steno Sture, the conqueror of the Danish in- 
vaders, in the great victory of Brunkberg (1471), contented him- 
self with the title of regent, and, in order to rouse the national 
sentiment of the Swedes, granted numerous privileges to the 
merchants, and accorded to the peasants the right of holding 
Estates. The national Diet, henceforth, was composed of four 
Estates, the nobility, the clergy, the merchants, and the peasants. 
Sten, the Elder, in order to provide an intellectual center for 
Sweden, created the University of Upsala July 2nd, 1477. An 
administrator of the first order and of irreproachable probity, 
nevertheless he could not entirely break up the Union of Calmar 
as he wished. From 1493 to 1501 he was compelled to submit to 
John of Denmark, and did not resume all of his authority until 
the last three years of his life. The power passed after him to his 
kinsman, Swante Nilsson Sture, who transmitted it in turn to his 
son, Steno Sture II. He was the last ruling member of this 
family, for, betraj^ed by the leader of the noble and ecclesiastical 
faction, Gustav Troll, Archbishop of Upsala, Steno Sture the 
younger was beaten by Christian II and killed at Boegesund 
(1520). 

16. Gustavus Vasa (1523-1560). — Among the Swedish hos- 
tages whom Christian II had brought to Copenhagen, there was 
a young noble, Gustavus Vasa. He took flight to Liibeck whence 
he passed into Sudermania, and from there into the midst of the 
free population of Dalecarlia in the northern part of Sweden. 
These people he succeeded in rousing at the Diet of Mora, de- 



THE SUCCESSORS OF GUSTAVUS VASA 453 

feated the archbishop of Upsala (Troll), took Stockholm, and 
was proclaimed king of Sweden at the Diet of Strengnaes in 
1523, and, thanks to the arms furnished him by the town of 
Liibeck, succeeded in driving out the Danes. Throughout he dis- 
played a disposition as absolute as that of his enemy. Christian II, 
of Denmark. 

When the preachers of the Reformation in Sweden had made 
a certain number of proselytes, Gustavus I, at the Diet of 
Westeras in 1527, decided that Lutheranism should be the state 
religion and that he should be its head. This was but to gather 
into his hands the religious and political power. Revolts broke 
out in Westrogothia and at Jonkoping, and finally at Stockholm, 
where in order to pay back the loans made by Liibeck the 
government had ordered that a bell be taken from each of the 
church belfries in certain districts, or a sum of money paid to 
redeem the bell itself. Efforts to raise money in this rather 
unusual fashion resulted in a series of revolts against the govern- 
ment. These were called the '^ Sedition of the Church Bells." 
But the Diet of Orebro supported the liberator whom the Lu- 
theran primate of Upsala^formally crowned. The following year 
the king had the leaders of the rebellion condemned by the Diet 
of Strenghaes, whither he had them induced to come, and they 
were either put to death or exiled. The Diets of Arboga and of 
Westeras (1540) confirmed him in absolute authority and in his 
direction of religious affairs. In addition to this, his efforts 
toward the development of the economic resources of Sweden, 
and his demands upon Russia concerning Finland, although based 
upon falsified documents, had already made of him the national 
Swedish hero, when he abdicated some months before his death in 
favor of his son, Erik VI (1560). 

17. The Successors of Gustavus Vasa (1560-1598).— Erik 
XIV, or, more exactly, according to a less legendary chronology, 
Erik VI, a musician and artist, with a brilliant though un- 
balanced mind, unfortunate in his wars against Denmark, scan- 
dalized the Swedes by his morals, and more still by his marriage 
with the daughter of a jailer and an apple vender, Karin Mans- 
datter, whom he had made queen July 5, 1568. This was the 
pretext which his brother John seized upon. A revolution over- 
threw Erik, and he was imprisoned until the time of his death in 



454 CENTRAL, EASTERN, NORTHERN EUROPE 

1577. Mistreated by his jailers, cared for with devotion by the 
woman who had been the cause of his misfortunes, a prey to 
terrible hallucinations, he, nevertheless, retained the sympathy of 
a great number of his followers, who attempted to liberate him, 
a circumstance which probably caused his violent death at the 
command of his young brother, Charles of Sudermania. 

John (III) Vasa, the next king, was chiefly concerned with the 
re-establishment of Catholicism for the purpose of giving validity 
to his claims upon Poland, which he held by his marriage with 
Catharine Jagellon. His son, Sigismund Vasa, was actually made 
king of Poland in the year 1587, and upon the death of John, 
became the heir to Sweden in 1592; but the Swedes were at that 
time too much attached to the Reformation to support the un- 
compromising Catholicism of the king of Poland. The Rigsraad 
and the Diet bestowed the regency upon Charles of Sudermania, 
who, at the great Synod of Upsala in 1593 had it declared that 
the king of Sweden should always be a Lutheran. In 1598, 
Sigismund, having been defeated, was compelled to give up his 
rights to the throne, and afterwards the Diet of Linkoping pro- 
claimed the regent king of Sweden under the title of Charles IX. 

18. Russia in the XIV and XV Centuries. — It was the 
struggle for the possession of the Baltic which brought Russia 
into the European circle. As Greek Christians the Russians had 
found themselves since the Tartar conquest (1224) drawn toward 
the extreme Orient. Their numerous princes, the descendants 
of the Norman Rurik, were little more than the vassals of tlie 
Khans of the Golden Horde, of which Kazan was the center. 
Kiev ceased to be the Russian metropolis, and the Slavic chief- 
tains transferred their residences from the plain of the Volga to 
the north. One of them, Alexander Nevski, prince of Vladimir, 
arose from obscurity by commencing war against Poland. Eighty 
years later Ivan I Kalita (1328- 1340) united the principalities 
of Moscow, Novgorod, and Vladimir, and one of his successors, 
Dmitri III Donskoi (1362-1389) defeated the Mussulmans upon 
the Don, though he was not able to drive them beyond the Volga. 
He made of Moscow an important capital, however, and with him 
is ushered in the Muscovite period of Russian history. 

19. The Lithuanians and the Poles. — ^At this time the 
Russians had as much to fear from the related Slavs of Lithuania 



IVAN IV, THE TERRIBLE 455 

and of Poland, as from the Mongols. The Lithuanians of the 
Niémen, augmented by the Borussians who had been driven from 
Prussia by the Order of the Sword, and then by the Teutonic 
Knights, occupied Kiev at the opening of the XIV century, and 
formed a vast state with Vilna as its capital. Their chief, 
Jagellon, had turned Catholic in 1386 for the purpose of marry- 
ing the heiress of Poland, Edwige of Hungary. He yielded 
Lithuania to his cousin Vitold, Vv^ho attacked the prince of Mos- 
cow, Vasili I; but the invasion of Tamerlane in 1399 checked 
the progress of the Lithuanians, who, seventy years afterwards, 
1469, united with the Poles. 

20. Ivan III, the Great (1462-1505).— The reign of Vasili 
II was no more happy than that of his predecessor; but Ivan III 
Vasilievitch possessed himself of the Slavic republic of Novgorod, 
rolled back the Golden Horde behind the Volga and the Lithua- 
nians and the Poles to the Soja, an affluent of the Dnieper. 
As heir to the claims of the Greek emperors, and married to 
a Paleologus princess, he adopted as his emblem the double- 
headed eagle of the Byzantines. He was the first in Russian 
history to turn his eyes toward Europe and attracted to Moscow 
both Greeks and Italians. Under Vasili III Ivanovitch, Mos- 
covia annexed the Slav principality of Riazan, and the republics 
of Pskov and Smolensk, which had been wrested from the Poles. 
He multiplied the relations of Russia with Europe, with the 
popes, the emperors, and the kings of Sweden, had knowledge of 
the Renaissance through the Greek monk Maximus, and finally 
began the struggle against the Russian nobility {boyars) and 
withdrew all political authority from their assembly, or 
Duma. 

21. Ivan IV, the Terrible (1533-1584).— During the 
minority of Ivan IV Vasilievitch, the nobles planned a reaction 
against absolutist tendencies; but the mother of Ivan, Helena 
Glinska, forced them into submission. After the death of this 
energetic woman in 1538 the young prince submitted to the 
tutelage of the boyars until 1543, .when a coup d'état restored to 
him all his authority. He put to death the leader of the aristoc- 
racy, was crowned in the cathedral of the Assumption in 1547, 
and finally took the title of Czar, which was equivalent to that 
of " autocrator " in the Greek empire. Having at first scan- 



456 CENTRAL, EASTERN, NORTHERN EUROPE 

dalized the people by the irregularity of his behavior, he irritated 
public opinion still further by abandoning the government to the 
near relatives of his wife, Anastasia Romanoff. 

Insurrections broke out in all directions, the malcontents every- 
where illuminated the skies with their incendiary fires and in 
1549 Moscow was almost completely consumed. Ivan, whose 
mind was already afflicted, threw himself into the most profound 
penitence, and governed for some time with two ministers of 
obscure origin. This is the period of the religious and judiciary 
reforms of the reign. It was also marked by the taking of 
Kazan and Astrakhan, which put an end to the Tartar domination 
in Russia (1554). Finally, the Cossack, Yermak Timofievitch, a 
soldier of fortune, and by no means above reproach, sent upon a 
voyage of discovery by the Strogonoff Russian merchants, attacked 
Irtish and took possession of Siberia in 1582, in the name of the 
Czar, but Ivan IV was less fortunate when he attempted to open 
up a route toward the Baltic at the expense of the Poles and 
the Swedes. 

22. The "Thousand" and the Pretorian Militia.— The 
last twenty years of the reign of Ivan were far from being so 
brilliant. After a severe illness which left him subject to fits 
of madness, and especially after the death of the czarina, Ana- 
stasia, whom he believed to have been poisoned, he removed his 
two ministers upon suspicion of treason. The czar, now believing 
himself surrounded by assassins, abdicated in 1564. The people 
and the clergy, who were afraid of being handed over anew to the 
aristocracy, prevailed upon him to reconsider his resolution, and 
he resumed power upon condition of living in the midst of a 
personnel of his own choosing, which he proceeded to select 
from among the adventurers who were already swarming into 
Moscow; the Thousand (Opretchniki). He also organized the 
pretorian militia of the *' Streltzi." Thus guarded, the czar took 
pitiless vengeance upon those whom he believed to be traitors. 
It was then that he won the surname of " the Terrible," and 
carried his executions even into his own family. He drew up 
proscription lists, some of which contained from fifteen hundred 
to three thousand names; entire houses, fathers, mothers, and 
children were thus wiped out by the executioners, but the czar 
salved his conscience by offering up prayers for his victims. He 



RUSSIA IN THE XVI CENTURY , 457 

died in 1584, plunged into remorse for having struck down in 
a moment of violence his eldest son, Ivan, As to his two other 
sons, one, Feodor, was feeble-minded, the other, Dmitri, was a 
child in his cradle. 

23. The Successors of Ivan the Terrible. — Feodor sub- 
mitted himself to the tutelage of his brother-in-law, the boyar, 
Boris Godunoff; but he died in 1598 and his brother Dmitri dis- 
appeared, assassinated. Boris then took the title of Czar himself 
at the moment when a false Dmitri claimed the crown with the 
support of Poland. 

The last of the Jagellon kings of Poland had died in 1572, and 
the nobles had substituted for the hereditary monarchy a govern- 
ment of the " Pospolite," or military assembly of the aristocracy, 
which made the crown elective. Henry III of France was the 
first to be chosen ; and, after his very short reign, the Transylva- 
nian, Stephen Bathory, was the opponent of Ivan IV. The second 
impostor, Dmitri, a claimant to the throne of Russia, was a 
serf who had surrounded him.self with all the vagabonds of 
Moscovia, a circumstance v/hich gave point to his surname of 
the " Brigand of Touchino " from the village where he had 
established himself at the gate of Moscow, until he was assassi- 
nated by one of his followers. The boyars had named as their 
candidate as czar the old Vasili Chouiski; but, judging him in- 
capable of defending them against the menaces of the Cossacks of 
the Dnieper, they accepted as the king, first Ladislaus, the son of the 
king of Poland, and then Sigismund of Sweden; but the national 
feeling brought about a popular uprising in 16 10, directed by 
the peasant, Minin, and the prince, Pojarski, to whom the 
Romanoffs owe their election. 

24. Russia in the XVI Century. — In the midst of this vio- 
lence and confusion, Russia began to detach herself from the Orient. 
Like other monarchs in Europe, the czars had now a strongly cen- 
tralized administration and a capitol, Moscow, of which the lower 
quarters were already the favorite sojourn of foreign adventurers. 
The city still had a character at once Byzantine and Mussulman, 
evidenced by the tubular cupolas of its churches, but the Kremlin, 
which, by reason of the gilded roofs of the Assumption, and by its 
red stairway, retained a certain originality, was constructed in 
part by Italian architects in the style of the Renaissance. Russian 



458 CENTRAL, EASTERN, NORTHERN EUROPE 

society still remained very coarse. The famous book Concerning 
the Household, a treatise upon domestic morals, written in the 
XVI century, shows that the Muscovites of that period were still 
under the patriarchal system, in which there was a great deal that 
was revolting, and which permitted to the father of the family the 
most cruel rights over his children. The boyars, of whom a 
certain number had descended from sovereign princes, had lost a 
great deal of their political authority. Ivan IV was not afraid 
to make an appeal to an actual Estates General (Zemsky-sobor) 
inasmuch as the merchants of the towns counted for little, and the 
free peasants, Mujiks, had disappeared after Boris Godounoff had 
attached them to the glebe. The status of the women of the 
upper classes, secluded as they were in the " Terem!* very much 
resembled that of the women of Turkey. 

25. The Religious Spirit and Poetry. — What especially 
distinguished the Russians, however, was a superstitious and 
naïve faith. They respected even the faults of their written 
liturgy, composed in Old Slavonic, which was already widely 
separated from the ordinary language, and so the priests gave 
little attention to instruction. Learning was scarcely cultivated 
except in the great convents, at Troltza, for example, or upon 
the islands of Solovetsk. Salvation consisted in the adoration of 
the sacred images (the ikons), in the worship of Russian saints, 
Saint Sergius, Saint Vladimir, Saint Michael, Saint Alexander, 
and Saint George. Outside the historical chronicles, like those 
of Nestor, in which the language was beginning to take form, the 
contemplative and poetic instinct of the Slavs inspired poems, trans- 
mitted orally by minstrels into Christian hymns, fairy tales in 
verse, local superstitions translated into plaints, epic cycles in 
which history is roughly treated by legend, sacred or romantic 
canticles, light or satirical songs and dances. 

26. Foreigners in Russia. — The Russians maintained their 
originality for a long time, but they were led to modify it at 
the end of the XVI century, and from the time of Ivan III 
intercourse with Europe became more and more frequent. The 
arrival of the English Chancellor in the White Sea (1553) I the 
long mission of Jenkinson to Ivan IV, which accustomed him to 
hearing England spoken of, and to considering it as a possible 
refuge in case of a triumph of the boyars, the mission of the 



CONCLUSION 459 

Jesuit Possevino, sent to Russia by Pope Gregory XIII; the 
influx to Moscow of Venetian, German, Scandinavian, and even 
French adventurers, — all these innovations accustomed the Rus- 
sian government to look toward the Occident. 

27. Conclusion. — The XVI century had witnessed striking 
transformations and discoveries. It had contributed to the birth 
of new nationalities, to the unity of France and of Spain, and had 
opened the doors of Europe to the last of the great nations, which 
consummated the task of creating the modern European world. 

At the moment when Philip II, Elizabeth, and Henry IV 
disappeared, modern monarchical Europe found itself well estab- 
lished. France, in the enjoyment of religious peace, now prepared 
to exert in Europe for a century an actual political and intel- 
lectual domination. Spain still shone with a clear brilliancy in 
the genius of her artists and writers, but ill-gotten wealth and 
religious fanaticism destroyed her moral stamina, and she entered 
upon a period of slow and majestic decline. Germany prepared 
herself for a bloody civil war between Protestants and Catholics. 
This ruined her for a century, and permitted France to paralyze 
her by an alliance with Sweden, Poland, and Turkey, which, 
for a time, interposed a barrier between central Europe and the Rus- 
sian Orient. England, upon the contrary, found in the Protestant 
Reformation the moral force which permitted her to shatter the 
attempts at monarchical absolutism by the Stuarts, to found a 
representative government, and to lay the foundation of her 
future colonial empire. Little Holland, likewise Protestant, the 
land of freedom par excellence, displayed a commercial activity 
which made of her the first maritime nation of Europe, and ac- 
cumulated the wealth which permitted her at the end of the century 
to be the center of the European coalition against Louis XIV. At 
the same time she played a great artistic and intellectual part in 
Europe. 

The Renaissance, the two Reformations, Catholic and Protes- 
tant, the discovery of America and of the Far East, and the in- 
vention of printing, had, by the end of the XVI century, borne 
all their fruit, and indicated all their consequences. The old 
theocratic and feudal Europe of the Middle Ages had passed. A 
new Europe was born which had intercourse with the entire 
world, in which movable wealth developed with an incredible 



46o CENTRAL, EASTERN, NORTHERN EUROPE 

rapidity, which had learned in its intercourse with the ancients 
to think freely and to conceive an ideal of beauty, achieved, meas- 
ured, and " classic," and which finally, in seeking to discover the 
principles of politics and of government, founded the law of 
nations, and prepared the way for the advent of liberal and 
democratic ideas. 



GENEALOGICAL TABLES 

GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE DESCENDANTS OP 
PHILIP THE BOLD 

Philip III (the Bold) 
(1270-1285) 



I 

Philip IV (the Fair) = Jeanne of Navarre 
(1285-1314) I 

Louis X Philip V Charles IV Isabella = Edward II 

the Quarrelsome the Tall the Fair I King of 

(1314-1316) (1316-1322) (1322-1328) I England 

I Edward III 

I King of England 

Jeanne II 
Queen of Navarre = Philip of Evreux 

Charles the Bad 
King of Navarre Charles of 

Valois 



Philip VI 
(1328-1350) 



461 



GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE HOUSE OP BRITTANY 



John I 
(1237-1286) 



John II 
(1286-1305) 



Arthur II 
(1305-1312) 



John III, "the Good, 
Duke of Brittany 
(1312-1341) 



Gay, Count of 
Penthièvre 



John IV of Montfort 
(1293-1345 



Jeanne of Penthièvre = Charles 
of Blois, "the Cripple" 

(1319-1384) John V of Montfort 

Duke of Brittany 
(1364-1399) 



John VI, "the Good" 

Duke of Brittany 

(1399-1442; 



Arthur of Richemond 
Constable of France 
Duke of Brittany 
(1457-1458) 



Pichard, Count 
of Étampes 



Francis II 
Duke of Brittany 
(1458-1488) 



(i) Charles VIII = \ Anne of Brittany 
^(2) Louis XII =( (1488-1514) 



462 



GENEALOGICAL TABLE OP THE HOUSE OP BOURBON 

John of Bourbon 
(1381-1404) 



Charles I 

5th Duke of Bourbon 

(1401-1456) 



Louis I, "the Good," 
Count of Montpensier 



John n Philip H = Anne of France 
the Good Sire de Beaujeu ; Daughter of 
6th Duke 7th Duke Louis XI 

(1426-1488) (1439-1503) 



Suzanne of Bourbon = Charles of 
Bourbon, 
the Constable 



Gilbert of Montpensier 
■ + 1496 



Charles of 

Bourbon = Suzanne 
the Constable of 
(i 490-1 527) Bourbon 



Marguerite = Philip II 

Duke of Savoy- 



Louise of = Charles, Count 
Savoy I of Angouleme 



Francis I 
(1515-1547) 



463 



GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE HOUSE OF GUISE 
Rene II of Vaudemont 



Antoine, Duke of Lorraine, 


Claude, Duke of Guise 


Head of the Ducal House of Guise 


(1496-1550) 






+ 1544 










i (I) 


(2) 


(3) 


(4) (5) 


(6) 1 


Francis, 


Charles, 


Claude, 


Louis, Rene, 


Marie, 


2d Duke 


Cardinal 


Duke of 


Cardinal Marquis 


married 


of Guise 


of 


Aumale 


of Guise of 


Tames V 


(1519-1563) 


Lorraine 




Elbeuf 


of 














Scotland 



Henry, 3d Duke 

of Guise 
Killed in 1588 



I 

Charles of 

Mayenne 

(1554-1611; 



Louis, 
Cardinal of Guise 



(Queen of 
Scots) 



Charles, 4th Duke 

of Guise 

(1571-1640) 



464 



INDEX 



Abd-Ul-Baki (Turkish poet), 448 
Academy, Platonic, of Florence, 

177; the Genevan, 330 
Accursius, 284 
Achmet I (Sultan), 449 
Adamites, 161 

Adam of Craponne, 395, 442 
Ad majorem Dei gloriam, Jesuit 

motto, 333 
Admiral of France, 71 
Adolf of Nassau, 24, 133; killed 

at Goelheim, 134 
Adrian (VI) of Utrecht (Pope), 

296, 332, 338, 339, 360 
Agincourt, Battle of (i4i5)> 88, 89 
Agnadel, Battle of, 217 
Agriculture under Henry IV, 439 
Aguado, John de, 260 
Aguilar, Geronimo de, 267 
Aides, 59, 67, 80, 119, 120, 121, 191, 

387; aid of the host, 70 
Ailly, Cardinal Pierre d', 162, 163, 

164, 165, 166, 397; his Imago 

Mundi, 256, 257 
Aladdin (Sultan), 222 
Albert (takes title of King of the 

Romans), 133 
Albert I (of Austria), 24, 135, 137; 

crowned (1298), 134 
Albert II (of Austria), 151; at 

Peace of Ratisbon, 136 
Albert the Cripple, 140 
Albert the Depraved, 133 
Albert of Mecklenburg, 450 
Albertus Magnus, 247 
Albizzi, Family of, 177 
Albornoz, 175, 176 
Albret, Charlotte d', marries Caesar 

Borgia, 180 
Albret, Constable d', 88 
Albret, Henry d', 181; Duke of 

Bouillon, 364 
Albret, Jeanne d', 400, 414, 419 ; 

death of, 407 
Albret, Sire d', 99, 196 



Alciat, jurisconsult, 384 

Aleander, papal nuncio, 317 

Aleman, Louis d', Bishop of Aries, 
166 

Alençon, County of, 11 

Alençon, Duke of, 36, 105, 106, 
108, 127, 189, 192, 194, 195, 
356, 376, 411 

Alençon, Pierre d', 11 

Alexander V (Pope), 160 

Alexander VI (Pope), 179, 180, 
181, 184, 209, 210, 211, 213, 
215, 241, 253, 446 

Alfonso of Bisceglia, 180 

Alhambra, 240 

Almagro, Diego de, 272, 274, 275 

Alphonse of Poitiers, 10 

Alphonse of Albuquerque, con- 
quests of, 254 

Alphonse V (of Aragon), the 
Magnanimous, 236 

Alphonso X (of Castile), 234 

Alphonso XI (of Castile), 234 

Alphonso of Castile, 237 

Alphonso (of Naples), 211 

Alphonso of Paiva, 252 

Alphonso V (of Portugal), 238, 
251, 256 

Alva, Duke of, 325, 339, 341, 345, 
347, 348, 371, 405; recalled, 
349 

Amboise, conspiracy of, 400; pacifi- 
cation of, 404; provisions of, 
405 ; Peace of {see Peace) ; 
treaty of {see Treaty) 

America, discovery of, 259; name 
of, 264 

Amortizement, d'j 

Anabaptists, of Munster, 323, 398 

Anagni, 22; attack at (1303), 19; 
treaty of, gives Naples to son 
of Charles of Anjou, 23 

Angélus, origin of, 194 

Angora (Ancyra), Battle of (1402), 
226 

465 



466 



INDEX 



Anjou, Duke of, 48, 57, 77, 78, 79, 
406, 409, 413; becomes King 
Henry III, 410 

Anna, wife of Charles IV, 
142 

Anne of Brittany, 180, 207, 208, 
215, 218, 220; m. Louis XII, 
213 

Anne of France (Beaujeu), 204, 
206, 207, 208 ; m. Pierre de 
Beaujeu, 196 

Anne du Bourg, 399 

Anne of Egmont, 351 

Anne of Mendoza, 344 

Aod, 417, 433 _ ^ 

Appanage, 11; Philip IV divides a 
large part of his kingdom 
under the name appanage 
among his four sons, 13, 14; 
operation of system in France, 
186, 187; Burgundy an ap- 
panage of the crown, 199 

Appeasement, 114 

Aquitaine, 32 

Aragon, 11, 217, 234 

Arc, Jaques d', 95 

Archers, the tax-free {francs- 
archers), 116, 117 

Aretino, Pietro, 291 

Aretino, Spinello, 286 

Ariosto, Ludovico, 291, 292 

Aristocracy, the French, in XV 
century, 126, 127 

Aristogiton, 417 

Aristotle, 280 

Armada, the Spanish, defeat of, 

345 
Armagnac, Count of, 127, 189, 

194, 195 

Armagnacs, the, party of, 85; their 
excesses, 88 

Armor, 377 

Army, the French, under Philip 
the Fair, 22 ; in XIV Century, 
58, 59, 70; before reforms of 
Charles VII, 113, 114; reforms 
of, under Charles VII, 114, 
115; under Louis XI, 201; in 
XVI Century, 387; under 
Henry IV, 442 

Arnolfo del Cambio, 289 

Arques, Battle of, 421, 422 

Arrière-ban, 22 



Ars, Louis d', 215, 362 

Art, French, in the XIV century, 
75 

Artevelde, van, James, 34; assassi- 
nation of, 35 

Artevelde, van, Philip, 79 

Artillery, the French, 71, 117, iiS; 
in the XVI century, 389 

Assembly of Notables, at Tours, 
annuls treaty of Péronne, 194; 
201, 383; of Cognac, 363; of 
1596, 436 

Atahualpa, 274 

Auberroche, 35 

Aubert, Thomas, 391 

Aubigny, Agrippa d', 400, 421 

Aubigny, Stuart d', 212 

Aubray, d', 426 

Aubriot, Hugh, 78 

Audiencias, 276 

Augsburg, Confession of (1530), 
322, 331; Interim of (1548), 
325; Peace of, {see Peace) 

Aumale, Duke d', 424 

Auneau, Battle of, 414 

Autos da je, 342 

Avignon, 20, 22 

Avignon, Marie d', 95 

Babylonian Captivity, 20 
Babylonian Captivity of the Church 

(Luther's), 316 
Bacon, Roger, 247, 250; his Opus 

M a jus, 256 
Baden, house of, 3 
Baillis, 15, 27 

Bajazet I (Sultan), 83, 224, 225 
Balbini, 441 

Balboa, Nunez de, 263, 264 
Baldwin, Count of Flanders, 221 
Baliol, John, 34 
Balue, Cardinal la, 193, 194 
Ban, against Luther, 318 
Barbarossa, Kair-Eddin, 366, 367 
Baronius, 336 
Barrière, 428 

Bassano, Jacopo de Ponte, 303 
Bassinet, 70 
Bathory, Stephen, 457 
Bayard, Chevalier, 215, 218, 356, 

359; death of, 361 
Bayonne, interview at, 405 
Beaujeu, Sire de, 204, 206 



INDEX 



467 



Bedford, Duke of, 94, 99, 103 ; 

death of, 104 
Bedr-Ed-Din, 226 
Beggars, the, 347; of the Sea, 347, 

349 ; on Land, 347 ; in the 

Wood, 347 
Beggars' War, 347 
Behaim, Martin, 251, 256 
Behme, 408 

Belgrade, defense of, 156 
Bellarmino, 336 
Bellini, Gentile, 289 
Bellini, Giovanni, 289 
Beltraneja, 237 
Benedict XI (Pope), 20, 173 
Benedict XII (Pope), 140, 141 
Benedict XIII (Pope), 160, 163, 

164, 178 
Berdun, Bishop of, 194 
Berlaymont, Baron, 346, 347 
Berlichingen, Goetz von, 310, 

320 
Bernard, Count of Armagnac, 85, 

89, 90 
Berni, 293 

Berry, Duke of, 77, 79, 82, 85 
Bertelier, 330 

Bertrand of Gotham (Pope Clem- 
ent V), 20 
Bessarion, i68 
Bessoneau, Pierre, ii8 
Bestiaires, 75 
Beza, Theodore, 402 
Biagrasso, Battle of, 361 
Biococco, Battle of, 359 
Birague, 408 

Biron, Marshal, 421, 422, 430 
Bithinia, Cardinal, 291 
Black Death, 37, 176 
Blacks, the faction of, 176 
Blanche of Bourbon, 53 
Blanche of Navarre, 37; m. 

John II (of Aragon), 235 
Blois, ordinance of, 413 
Blomberg, Barbara, 343 
" Bluebeard " (see Retz) 
Boabdil, 240 
Bobadilla, John de, 260 
Boccaccio, 283, 290 
Boehmisch-brodo, Battle of (1434), 

Boétie, La, his Discourse upon 
Voluntary Sermtude, 369, 386 



Bohemia, insurrection in, 150 
Boniface VIII (Pope), 16, 17, 18, 

19, 20, 21, 22, 28, 134, 138, 

169, 173 
Boniface IX (Pope), 149, 159 
Bonne of Luxemburg, 49 
Bonnes 'villes, 68 
Bonnivet, 361, 362 
Book of Hours, The, 76 
Book of the Cannonier, The, 390 
Books, first printed, 249 
Bordeaux, Archbishop of, 20 
Borgia, Caesar, 179, 180, 181, 210, 

214, 217, 290, 293 
Borgia, family of, 179, 180 
Borgia, Giovanni, Duke of Gandia, 

179, 180 
Borgia, Lady Venozza dei Catani, 

179 
Borgia, Lucretia, 180 
Borgia, Roderigo (Alexander VI), 

179 
Borromeo, Charles, 444 
Bosiandçis, 448 
Botticelli, 183, 287 
Boucher, 417, 428 
Boucicaut, 51 
Bouillon, Marshal, 430 
Boulogne, siege of, 367 
Bourbon, Antoine de (King of 

Navarre), 400, 404, 419 
Bourbon, faction of, 400; called to 

power by Catharine de' Me- 
dici, 401 
Bourbon, Louis, Prince of Condé, 

400, 404, 405 
Bourges, Archbishop of, 428 
Bourguignote, 388 
Boyars, 455, 457, 458 
Brandenburg, Louis in, 141 
Brandenburg, sold to Charles IV, 

145 ; transferred to Frederick 

of Hohenzollern (1415), 152 
Brankovitch, Prince, 232 
Brazil, discovery of, 253 
Breton Succession, The War of the, 

34, 35 
Briçonnet, William, Bishop of 

Meaux, 397 
Bridget of Sweden, Saint, 161 
Brie, definitely joined to the 

crown, 31 
Brienne, Gautier de, 40 



468 



INDEX 



" Brigand of Touchino," 457 

Brigandine, 117 

Brissac, Marshal of, 399 

Brisson, 425 

Brittany, Duke of, 56, 85 

Brittany, French acquisition of, 

207 ; war in, 207 
Bruce, Robert, 34 
Brueghel, Pieter, 308 
Bruges, Truce of, 56 
Brunelleschi, 177, 289 
Brunkberg, Battle of (1471), 452 
Brunnen, confederation of (1291), 

135 

Brussels, union of, 350 

Brutus, 433 

Bucer, Martin, 322, 331 

Budinger, 331 

Bull, 342; Ausculta fill, 16, 19; 
Clericis laicos, 18; Unam 
Sanctam, 19; of Sixtus IV, es- 
tablishing Spanish inquisition 
(1478), 239; Crusada,é\t,2\\\ 
of Alexander VI, 259; Exurge 
Domini, 317; In Coena 
Domini, 336 

Bull, Golden, 3 ; its provisions, 143, 
144 

Bundschuh, 310 

Buonarotti, Michael Angelo, 183, 
219, 288, 293, 294, 295, 296, 
297, 298, 300, 303, 308; at 
Florence, 295 

Bureau, the brothers, 108 

Bureau, Gaspard, 118 

Burghers, of Flanders, 34 

Burgundy, house of, 7; Duchy of, 
joined to the crown, 48 ; 
granted to Philip the Bold as 
an appanage, 48 ; succession in, 
48, 199 

Burgundian, party of, 85; triumph 
of (1418), 90 

Butler, functions of, suppressed, 
26 

Caboche, Simon, 86 

Cabochiens, 85, 86; excesses of, 

88 
Cabot, John, voyages of, 264, 265 
Cabot, Sebastian, 264 
Cabrai, Alvarez, discovers Brazil, 

253 



Calais, capture of, by Edward III, 
36, 37; capture of, by Duke of 
Guise, 372 

Calixtins (Utraguist), 150, 165 

Calixtus III (Pope), 107, 123 

Calixtus IV (Pope), 179 

Calmar, union of, 8, 449, 450; end 
of, 451 

Calvin, John (Jean Cauvin), at 
Geneva, 329, 330; his Insti- 
tutes, 329, 398 

Cam, Diego, 251 

Cambio, Arnolfo del, 289 

Cambrai, 34 

Caraoëns, Luis de, 255 

Campeggio, 322 

Canals under Henry IV, 441 

Cano, Sebastian del, 265, 266 

Cape La Hougue, 36 

Capeluche, 90 

Capetians, the, 32, 47, 63, 70 

Capitation, 60 

Capponni, Pietro, 210 

Captai de Buch, 51 

Carlo, Cardinal of Caraffa, 336 

Carlos, Don, the Mad Prince, 342 

Carlstadt, 319 

Carolinum, the, 328 

Carpaccio, Vittore, 289 

Cartier, Jacques, 391 

Casa de contratacion, 263 

Casimir of Brandenburg, 320 

Casimir, John, 406 

Castiglione, Baldassare, his Cour- 
tier, 291, 377 

Castile, 54, 234 

Castillon, Battle of (1453), 108 

Castriot, John, 227 

Castro, Vaca de, 275 

Catechism, Luther's Great, 322 

Catharine of Aragon, wife of 
Henry VIII of England, 241, 

365 

Catharine of Avis, 344 

Catharine of France, 91 

Catherine of Siena, Saint, 161 

Catholicon, 249, 426 

Cauchon, Pierre, 100, loi, io3 

Caudebec, Battle of, 424 

Cavalcanti, Guido, 281 

Cavalry, the French, in XVI cen- 
tury, 387 

Cellini, Benvenuto, 303, 304, 364 



INDEX 



469 



Central Power, The, 64 

Cerdagne, 209 

Cerignola, Battle of, 215 

Cerisoles, 367 

Cesarini, Cardinal, 166, 167, 227 

Chalil, Grand Vizir, 230 

Chamber, of Accoiuits, 14, 26, 27, 

29, 58, 67, 189; Great, 26, 65; 

of Inquests, 26, 65 ; of Requests, 

26 ; of Petitions, 65 
" Chamber of the Edict," 413 
Chamberlain, functions of, sup- 
pressed, 26 
Chambre ardent, 399 
Champagne, definitely joined to the 

crown, 31 
Champlain, 442 
Chanca, 259 
Chancellor, office of, 26, 58, 65, 69, 

112, 380, 381 
Chandos, John, 52, 53 
Charles (of Anjou), 11, 130, 169, 

176; death of, 12; son of, 23 
Charles the Cripple defeated 

(1284), 12 
Charles of Berry, 189, 191, 192, 

193 
Charles, the. Bold, Count of Charo- 
lais, 137, 189, 190, 191, 192, 

193, 195, 196, 198, 199 
Charles, Constable of Bourbon, 

321, 356; treason of, 360, 361, 

362, 363, 364 
Charles (IV) the Fair (of France), 

reign of, 30; of Valois, 25, 28, 

31 

Charles V (of France), 29, 32, 49, 
50, 51, 52, 53, 54,. 55, 56, 67, 
81; results of reign of, 60; 
Regent of France, 145 

Charles VI (of France), 32, 85, 
149, 163; minority of, 77, 79; 
madness of, 81, 82; death of, 91 

Charles VII (of France), 32, 67, 
97, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 113, 
123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 167, 
168, 201; accession of, 92; 
coronation of, at Rheims 
(1429), 98; last years of, 
108; death of, 109; summary 
of reign of, no, in; financial 
institutions of, 119, 120, 121; 
judiciary institutions of, 118 



Charles VIII (of France), 179, 180, 
184, 208, 213, 244, 446; acces- 
sion of, 204; in Italy, 209, 210; 
at Rome, 210, 211; retreat of, 
from Italy, 211, 212; Turkish 
relations of, 447 

Charles, "the Bad" (of Navarre), 
39, 40, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 5i, 
52, 56, 235 

Charles IX (of France), 404, 407, 
408, 409, 417, 419; reign of, 
400; death of, 410 

Charles X (of France), Cardinal 
of Bourbon, 400, 414, 420, 425 

Charles IV (of Germany), 53, 136, 
140, 142, 152, 175; in Italy, 
142 ; weakness of, in Germany, 
144; Bohemia under, 145; arts 
and letters at court of, 146 

Charles (V) of Austria (Emperor 
of Germany), 215, 241, 265, 
296, 301, 302, 315, 316, 317, 
318, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 
335, 343, 345, 346, 355, 356, 
362, 363, 364, 366, 367, 368, 
370; in Spain, 338, 339; offi- 
cials of, in Spain and in 
Flanders, 339; abdication of, 
340, 370, 371; death of, 340; 
rivalry with Francis I, 357 

Charles of Guienne, 194; death of, 
195 

Charles VIII (Knutsson), (of Swe- 
den), 452 

Charles (IX) of Sudermania (Re- 
gent of Sweden), 454; made 
King of Sweden at Diet of 
Linkoping, 454 

Charles Emanuel of Savoy, 418, 
425, 431 

Charles III, Duke of Savoy, 329 

Charles of Spain, 39 

Charlotte of Savoy, m. Dauphin 
Louis, 108 

Charter to the Normans, 29 

Chateaubriand, Madame, 376 

Châteaux, of XVI century, 378 

Châtillon, Francis, Sire d'Andelot, 
400 

Châtillon, Gaspard, Count of Co- 
Hgny, 400 

Châtillon, Odet, Bishop of Beau- 
vais, 400 



470 



INDEX 



Chauliac, Guy de, his La Grande 
Chirurgie, 75 

Chaumont of Amboise, 214 

Chièvres, 276; lords of, 315 

Chizé, 56 

Chouiski (of Russia), 457 

Christian I (of Denmark), Chris- 
tiern of Oldenburg, 331, 450 

Christian II (of Denmark), 331, 
450, 452, 453 ; favors Lutheran- 
ism, 450; favors Catholicism, 

451 

Christian III (of Denmark), secu- 
larization by, 451 

Christopher III of Bavaria, 450 

Chrysoloras, Emanuel, 284 

Church, German, 3; Gallican, 72; 
French, and the crown, 124; 
Roman, in XIV and XV cen- 
turies, 159; decadence of, in 
XV century, i6o 

Cimabue, 285 

Clamanges, Nicholas de, 163 

Claude of France, 215, 216, 220 

Clementine (of Hungary), Queen 
of France, 29 

Clément, Jacques, assassin of Henry 
III, 416 

Clement IV (Pope), 5 

Clement V (Pope), 20, 21, 138, 139, 

173 
Clement VI (Pope), 38, 141, 173, 

175 
Clement VII (Pope), 159, 295, 296, 

304, 320, 321, 332, 363, 364, 365 
Clement VIII (Pope), 292, 336 
Clergy, French, in XIV century, 

72; under Philip the Fair, 17 
Clermont, Count of, 94, 107 
Clisson, Oliver, 35, 81, 82 
CI ou et, 302 
Cocherel, 51 
Cochlaeus, 322 
Cœur, Jacques, 106, 121, 122, 123, 

124 
Coictier, 205 
Coinage, Treatise upon the, 60; 

Chamber of, 68 
Coligny, Admiral, 349, 371, 39i, 

404, 405, 406, 419; projects of, 

407 ; death of, 408 
Colloquy, at Marburg, 328; of 

Poissy, 40^ 



Colonna, 6, 18, 179 
Colonna, Prospero, 355, 359 
Colonna, Sciarra, 19, 140 
Colonna, Vittoria, 297, 302, 332 
Columbus, Bartholomew, 256, 257, 

259, 260 
Columbus, Christopher, 238, 256, 

261, 265; in Spain, 257; his 

departure, 257; first voyage of, 

258; narrative of, 259; second 

voyage of, 259; third voyage 

of, 260; last voyage and death 

of, 260 
Columbus, Diego, 256, 259, 260, 

263, 266 
Columbus, Domenico, 256 
Columbus, Ferdinand (son of 

Christopher), 261 
Comines, Philip, 193 
Commanderies, 276 
Commerce, French, 202; in XVI 

century, 394, 395 ; and canals, 

441 
Communes, Flemish, 79 
Comnenus, house of, 221 
Compact of Prague, provisions of, 

167 
Compass, the, 250 
*' Compromise of the Nobles " 

(1566), 346, 347, 348 
" Concord, Formula of," 322 
Concordat, of Aschaffenburg 

(1448), 154; of Vienna, 168; 

of 1472, 202; of 1516, 356; its 

provisions, 385 
Confederation, Swiss, 444 
Conquest of Peru, 274 
Conquistadores, 264 ; end of, 

275 
Conradin, 2, 5, 11, 130, 169 
Conscriptions, 60 

Constable, 55, 59, 70, 379; func- 
tions of, suppressed, 26 
Constabulary, 379 
Constantine XIII, Greek Emperor, 

228, 229, 230, 231 
Constantinople, siege of, 229, 230; 

fall of (1453), 230, 231 
Consulta, the secret, 346 
Contarini, Gaspar, 332 
Cordova, Gonsalvo de, 212, 214, 

215, 238, 240 
Correggio (Antonio Allegri), 299 



INDEX 



471 



Cortes, 236; of Avila, 237; of Sara- 
gossa, 338; of Valladolid, 338; 
of Coimbra, 344; of Tarra- 
gona, 344; of Tomar, 345 

Cortez, Fernando, 266, 267, 268 ; 
expedition of Narvaez against, 
269 ; march upon Mexico, 269 ; 
has Montezuma killed, 270; 
death of, 271 

Cotentin, the, 36 

Council, of Ten, 5; of the King, 
14, 26; Church, 19, 20, 22, 
210, 332; of Vienne, 22; the 
Great, 58, 66, 68, 69, 81, iii; 
of Basel, 104, 105, 149, 151, 
166, 168, 327, failure of, 167; 
of Constance, 149, 150, 160, 
162 (1414-1418), 163, 164, 
315» 327,, 397; failure of, 
165; of Pisa, 160; of Ferrara- 
Florence, 167; of the Regency, 
205; of the Indies [Casa de 
Contratacion) , 263; of Trent, 
335, 335, 336, deliberations of, 
334; of Malines, 339, 345; of 
State, 381; Great, 381; of 
Affairs, 382; from on High, 
382 

Councils, the, 381 

Counselors general, for collection 
of the aides, 60 

Court, the French, 64, 377. Of- 
ficers of: Grand Master of 
France, 379; Grand Butler, 
Grand Chamberlain, Grand 
Chambrier, Grand Cook, Grand 
Esquire, Grand Falconer, 
Grand Huntsman, Grand Mas- 
ter Inquisitor, Grand Master 
of the Pantry, Grand Reformer 
of Waters and Forests, 380 

Courtier, the (Castiglione's), 377 

Courtrai, Battle of (1302), 23, 32 

Cousins, John, 390 

Coutras, Battle of, 414, 420 

Cranach, Lucas (Lucas Miller), 
307 

Crato, Antonio de, of Portugal, 
344 

Cravant-sur-Yonne, Battle of, 93 

Crécy, Battle of, 35, 36, 71 

Crescent, the origin of symbol, 232 

Croquants, 433 



Crosnier, Hughues, 442 

Cueilly, 428 

Cueva, Bertrand de la, 237, 238 

Cujas, jurisconsult, 384 

Cujus regio ejus religio, 321, 326, 

445 
Culverin, 117 
Curia Generalis, 2 
Customs duties, 120 
Cyprus, King of (Hugh de Lu- 

signan), 53 
Czar, title of, 455 

Daim, Oliver le, 188, 204 

Dammartin, 191, 193, 194 

Dampierre, Guy de, 23 

Dandolo, 232 

Daniel of Volterra, 294 

Danois, Ravant le, 121 

Dante, 20, 25, 138, 176, 281, 290, 

291, 294 
Dauphin, origin of name, 38; 

Charles, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 

86, 89; Louis, 105, 106, 108; 

Francis, m. Mary Stuart, 369 
Dauphiny, acquired by France 

.(1349), 38 
David, 412 
Day of the Awakening of the 

French, The, 417 
"Day of Barricades, The," 415 
" Day of Herrings, The," 94 
Day of Spurs (1302), The, 23 
Declaration of 1595, 439; of 1597, 

439 
De Clisson, 80 
De Dominie Dimno, 161 
De la Mark, Robert, Count of 

Bouillon, 359 
Del Bene, 415 
Del Rio, 348 

Demarcation, The Line of, 259 
Demi-lance, 388 
De Monarchia, 25 
Denis of Honfleur, 391 
Denmark, Reformation in, 331; 

(1340-1439), 449; German 

Kings in, 450; in XVI century, 

451 
Des Adrets, 403 

Desmarets, Advocate General, 80 
Dialogue of Maheustre and of 

Manant, 428 



472 



INDEX 



Diana of Poitiers (Mademoiselle 
de Valentinois), 368, 369, 376 

Dias, Bartholomew, 251; rounds 
Africa, 252; death of, 253 

Diet, National German, 2; of 
Pesth, 156; of Worms, 317, 
318; First, of Speyer, 320, 321, 
325; Second, of Speyer, 321; 
of Augsburg, 321, 322; of 
Copenhagen, 331; of Orebro, 
331» 453; of Westeras, 331, 
453; of Mora, 452; National 
Swedish, 452; of Arboga, 453; 
of Strengnaes, 453 ; of Lin- 
koping, 454 

Dikvelde, 450 

Discourse upon the Life of Queen 
Catharine, 386 

Discoverers, the Norman, 390 

Djem, Prince, 210, 446 

Djihamghir, 448 

Dmitri Donski, 9 

Dmitri III (1362-1389), begins 
Muscovite period of Russian 
history, 454 

Dmitri (son of Ivan IV), 457 

Dmitri, the False, 457 

Donatello, 177, 288, 289 

Dormans, Battle of, 411 

Douanes, 60 

Doyat, John, 205 

Dragoon Companies, the, 115, 116 

Dreux, Battle of, 404 

Du Bartas, his Judith, 386 

Du Bellay, 376 

Dubois, 25, 28 

Ducas, John II, 221 

Du Faur, 399 

Du Guesclin, Bertrand, 50; Cap- 
tain of Pontorson, 51, 52; and 
the Great Companies, 52; ran- 
som for, 53, 54; armies en- 
trusted to, 55, 56; enters Nor- 
mandy, 56 

Dunois, 94, 105, 106, 107 

Du Perron, 336 

Duplessis-Morany, 404, 416 

Durer, Albert, 305 ; his works, 306 

Eagle, double-headed, adopted as 

Russian emblem, 455 
Eberhard of Wurtemberg, 132 
Eboli, Prince of, 344 



Ecclesiastical reservation, the, 
(1555), 326, 445 

Eck, John, 315, 322 

Economies Royales, 439 

Edict, Liberal, of Coucy, 398 ; of 
Chateaubriand, 399; of Ecouen, 
399; of Fontainebleau, 399; of 
Paris, 399; of January, 1562, 
402, 403 ; of union at Rouen, 
415; of Nantes, 431, its pro- 
visions, 432 

Edward, Prince of Wales (the 
Black Prince), 36, 40, 54, 55; 
ravages Limousin, Auvergne, 
and Berry, 41 

Edward I (of England), 6, 7, 133 

Edward II (of England), 30, 31 

Edward III (of England), 31, 32, 
33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 46, 47, 51, 
54, 55, 56, 141 

Edward IV (of England), 192, 
194, 197, 198 

El Dorado, 264 

Eleanor of Austria, 302, 363, 364 

Election of 1519, 315, 316 

Electors, the college of, 2, 3 

Elizabeth (of Bohemia), 138 

Elizabeth (of England), 352, 400, 
404, 410, 421, 459 

Elizabeth of France (Queen of 
Spain), 342, 405 

Elus, 40, 43, 60, 116 

El Zagal, 240 

Emanuel (of Portugal), 254 

Empire, Latin, of Constantinople, 
fall of, 221 

Enghien, Count of Bourbon, 367 

Enquesteurs, 69 

Epernon, Duke of, 416, 417, 431 

Epi ces, 65 

Epistle Sent to the Tiger of France, 
. 386, 417 

Epistolae Ohscurorum Virorum, 

317 
Erasmus, 332, 398; his Praise of 

Folly, 310 
Eric IX, 8 

Erik the Pomeranian, 450 
Erik VI (of Sweden), 453; death 

of, 454 
Ernest, Archduke of Austria, 352 
Ernest of the Iron Tooth, 154 
Escorial Palace, 341 



INDEX 



473 



Escovedo, assassination of, 344 

Espinosa, Inquisitor, 342 

Essarts, Pepin des, 46 

Estates General, 67, 68, 69, 112; 
(1302-08-14), 15-17; (1302), 
19; (1351), 39; (1355), 40; 
(1356), 42, 44; (1357), 43, 44, 
45; (1359), 47; (1369), 59; 
(1413), 87; (1468), 201; 
(1484), 205, 206, 207; (1506), 
216, 383; (1560-61), 401; 
(1576), 413; (1588), 415; 
(1593), 425; at Niort, 55; of 
the Langue d'Oïl, 59, 60; 
Provincial, 69, 112, 113; of 
Tours, 192; of Flanders, 339, 
370; of the Netherlands, 350, 
351, 352; of Russia, 458 

Estouteville, Cardinal, 126 

Estradiots, 388 

Eszeck, Battle of, 366 

Etiquette, at court, 377, 378 

Eugene IV (Pope), 105, i66, 167, 
168, 178, 284 

Eustache of Saint Pierre, 37 

Evangelism, 327, 328 

Fabriano, Gentile da, 286 

Fagotin, Guillot, 426 

Falstaff, Sir John, 94 

Farel, William, 329, 397 

Farnese, Alexander, Duke of 
Parma, 345, 350, 351, 424 

Farnese, Ottavio, 369 

Felix V (Anti-Pope), 167, 168 

Feodoi (son of Ivan), 457 

Ferdinand (of Austria), 242, 323, 
326, 340, 370, 445, 447 

Ferdinand (of Naples), 182, 209, 
211, 214 

Ferdinand, the Catholic (King of 
Aragon), 189, 2ii, 214, 215, 
216, 218, 234, 236; m. Isabella 
of Castile, 237, 238, 239, 241, 
242, 259, 260, 261, 263 ; foreign 
policy of, 242, 243, 244, 
245 

Feria, Duke of, 429 

Ferrara, Duke of, 217 

Ferrer, James, 251 

Fêtes, at court, 378 

Feudalism, the Diminishing, 15 

Ficino, Marsilio, 285 



Field of the Cloth of Gold, The 
(1520), 358, 359 

" Fight of the Thirty," 39 

Finance, Administration of, 67, 387 

Finances, French, in the XVI cen- 
tury, 59; Extraordinary, 67; 
Ordinary, 67 ; Secretary of the, 
381 ; Superintendent of, 381 

Financial Institutions of France, 
119, 120 

Financial Reforms under Henry IV, 

437 

Flamel, Nicholas, 75 

Flanders, County of, 23 ; war with 
France, 31, 32, 35 

Fleur de lis, The Princes of the, 
80, 82 

Flotte, Peter, 19, 28 

Foix, Count of, 57 

Foix, Gaston de, 244 ; exploits of, 
in Italy, 219 

Foix, Germaine de, 243, 244 

Folkungs, 7, 452 

Fonseca, John Roderick de, 260 

Fontaine-Française, Battle of, 431 

" Fools' War," The, 207 

Forêt, Jean de la, 447 

Formigny, Battle of (1450), 107 

Fornova, Battle of, 212 

Fra Angelico, 286 

Fra Bartolommeo, 183, 294, 297 

Francesca, Pietro della, 287 

Francia, 305 

Francis of Almeyda, 254 

Francis of Angoulême, 216, 220 

Francis of Anjou, 351 

Francis of Assisi, Saint, 285 

Francis I (of France), 294, 302, 
304, 309, 316, 320, 329, 355, 
356, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 
366, 367, 376, 398, 436, 442; 
and the Concordat of 1516, 
385; death of, 368; new for- 
eign policy of, 365; rivalry 
of, with Charles V, 357, 358, 
359; Turkish relatians of, 447, 
448 ; youth and education of, 

354 
Francis II (of France), 399, 400 
Francis II, Duke of Brittany, 192, 

198, 207 
Francis Xavier, Saint, 333 
Franco-Castilian Fleet, 56 



474 



INDEX 



Franco-Gallia, 417 

Franks, 3, 8 

Frederick (of Austria), 135, 163 

Frederick of Babenberg, Duke of 

Austria, 5 
Frederick the Bitten, 133, 134 
Frederick the Fair (Duke of Aus- 
tria), 139; made prisoner, 139, 
140 
Frederick III (of Austria), 106 
Frederick I (of Denmark), 331; 

Duke of Holstein, 451 
Frederick II (of Denmark), 451; 
m. Sophia of Mecklenburg, 

451 

Frederick II (of Germany), 2, 5, 
130 

Frederick III (of Germany), 153, 
155» 156, 168, 197; and Ger- 
many, 154 

Frederick of Hohenstaufen, 169 

Frederick of Hohenzollern, 129, 

131, 152 
Frederick (of Naples), 214 
Frederick Henry, of Nassau (third 

Stadtholder), 352 
Frederick (of Sicily), 25 
Frederick the Wise (The Elector) 

of Saxony, 313, 320 
Frundsberg, George, 310, 321, 363 
Fueros, 236; of Aragon, 344 
Fuggers of Augsburg, The, 314, 

316 
Fust, John, 249 

Gabelle, The, 37, 40, 60, 67, 80, 

120, 387 
Gaddi, Agnolo, 286 
Gaddi, Taddeo, 286 
Galeazzo, Gian, 210 
Gama, Vasco da, 252; in India, 

252, 253 ; second voyage of, 

253 

Gattinara, Chancellor, 324, 339, 
358 

Gautier s , 433 

Gembloux, Battle of, 350 

Generalities, the, 387 

Geneva, Calvin in, 329 

Genghis Khan, 225 

Gennadios, Greek Pope, 229 

Gennadios, Patriarch of Constan- 
tinople, 231 



Genoa, Doge of, 216; submits to 
France (1507), 216 

Genouillac, Galliot de, 356, 362, 
389 

Geoiïrey of Harcourt, 35 

George of Amboise (Cardinal), 
213, 215, 216, 218 

Gerard, Balthazar, assassin of 
William of Orange, 351 

Gerard of Eppenstein, Archbishop 
of Mainz, 134 

German sculptors, 306 

Germany, reorganization of, under 
Maximilian, 157, 158; at the 
death of Maximilian, 309; re- 
ligious questions in (1555- 
1598), 445 

Gerson, John, " The Most Chris- 
tian Doctor," 86, 162, 163, 165, 
166, 397 

Gessler, 135 

Ghent, Insurrection of, 340 

Ghibelline, 5, 18, 138, 139, 170, 176 

Ghiberti, 177, 289 

Ghirlandajo, 287, 294 

Gil Eannez, 251 

Gilles de Retz, "Bluebeard," 126; 
execution of, 127 

Giorgione, 303 

Giotto, 281, 285, 286 

Giustiniani, 230 

Glinska, Helena, 455 

Gloucester, Duke of, 103 

Gobelins, house of, 441 

Godunoff, Boris, 457; attaches peas- 
ants to the soil, 458 

Golden Horde, Khans of the, 454, 

455 
Gondi, 408 

Gonneville, Paulmier de, 391 
Gottschalk, 311 
Goujon, 376 
Government, French Central, in 

XVI century, 379 
Governors, the, 382 
Gozzoli, Benozzo, 287 
Granada, conquest of, 240 
Granvella, Cardinal of. Bishop of 

Malines, 324, 341, 358; made 

Primate of Malines, 346 
Granvella, Nicholas Perrenot, 324 
Great Companies, The, 48, 49, 50, 

176; and Du Guesclin, 52, 61 



INDEX 



475 



Greek Empire, i 
Gregory X (Pope), 5, 6, 130 
Gregory XI (Pope), 159, 161 
Gregory XII (Pope), 149, 160, 163, 

164, 178 
Gregory XIII (Pope), 336 
Gregory XIV (Pope), 425 
Griblianovitch, Lazarus, Prince of 

Serbia, 224 
Gruet, 330 
Guelders, 34 
Guelfs, 2, 5, 6, 138, 139, 170, 176, 

177 
Guérin, 398 
Guicciardini, 290 
Guienne, 23, 34, 35, 194 
Guisards, endorse Henry of May- 
enne, 420 
Guise, Cardinal of, 410, 416 
Guise, Cardinal, of Lorraine, 399, 

402, 410 
Guise, Charles of, 369; son of 

" Balafré," 425 
Guise, Claude of, 369 
Guise, faction of, 369, 400 
Guise, Francis of, 369, 370, 399, 

402, 403; captures Calais, 372; 

death of, 404 
Guise, Henry of, 345, 408, 410, 412; 

origin of name " Scarred," 

411; pretender to the throne, 
.414, 415, 417 
Guise, Henry of Mayenne, 416, 

420 
Guise, Mary, of Lorraine {see 

Mary) 
Gunpowder, invention of, 246 
Gutenberg, 249 
Guyot of Provence, 250 

Haakon VI (King of Sweden and 

Norway), 450 
Halidon Hill, 34 
Hansa, the, 4 
Hapsburgs, The, 1, 130 
Harcourt, Count of, 40 
Harmodius, 433 
Haton, Claude, 403 
Haubergeon, 70 
Hauteville, Elizabeth, 399 
Hearth-tax, 55, 60 
Hélène of Hangest, 393 
Hennebon, siege of, 35 



Henry of Brederode, 347 

Henry III (of Castile), 235 

Henry (IV) the Powerless (of 
Castile), 235, 237 

Henry of Condé, 406, 409, 411, 
413 

Henry III (of England), 2, 6 

Henry V (of England), 88, 90, 163; 
death of, 91 

Henry VI (King of England and 
France), 92; crowned at Paris, 
103 

Henry VIII (of England), 219, 
220, 306, 316, 355, 358, 362, 
365, 367, 368; interview with 
Charles V at Gravelines, 
359 

Henry II (of France), 326, 339, 
365, 368, 442, 448; death of, 
373 

Henry III (of France), 352, 410, 
411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 417; 
** Protector of Germanic lib- 
erties," 370; assassination of, 
416; elected King of Poland, 
457; Turkish Treaty, under, 
448 

Henry (IV) of Navarre (of 
France), 244, 336, 352, 409, 
411, 413, 414, 416, 419, 423, 
424, 431, 432, 433, 434; m. 
Margaret of Valois, 408; ac- 
cession of, 420; struggle for 
the crown, 421, 422; abjura- 
tion of, 427, 428; master of 
France, 428, 429, 430; govern- 
ment of, 435, 436; financial re- 
forms of, 437, 438; agricul- 
ture under, 439; industry 
under, 440, 441 ; commerce 
and canals under, 441, 442; 
army under, 442, 443, 459 

Henry (VII) of Luxemburg (of 
Germany), 135, 138; and 
Popes and Ghibellines of Italy, 
138 ; death of, 139, 140 

Henry of Montmorency (Marshal 
of Damville), 410 

Henry of Nassau, death of, 
349 

Henry the Navigator, Prince of 
Portugal, 250, 251 

Henry of Richmond, 207 



476 



INDEX 



Hereford, Nicholas, 162 

Herman of Salza, 8 

Hohenzollern, house of, 152 

Hohenzollern, Albert of, Grand 
Master of the Teutonic Order, 
321 

Holbein, Hans, 306 

Holstein Dynasty, 451 

Horn, Count of, 346, 347; executed, 
348 

Hospital, Michael de 1', 400; 
Chancellor, 401, 402, 405 ; dis- 
missed, 406 

Houtman, Cornelius, 352 

Hradschin, 145 

Huana-Capac, 274 

Huascar, 274 

Humbert H (Count Dauphin of Vi- 
ennois), 38 

Humières, Marshal d', 411 

Hundred Years' War, the, origin 
of, 32; resources of France and 
England in, 33; resumption of, 
88 

Hunyadi, John Corvinus (King of 
Hungary), 156, 227, 229, 232 

Hus, John, 150, 160, 161, 162, 163, 
164, 174, 284, 310, 315, 316, 
318; condemnation of, 165 

Hutten, Ulrich von, 310, 318; his 
Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, 
318 ; his death, 319 

Ibarra, Diego de, 429 

Ibrahim, Grand Vizir, 447, 448 

Ikons, 458 

II Frate, Baccio della Porta {see 

Fra Bartolommeo) 
// Penseroso, 296 
Imago Miindi, 256, 257 
Impanation, 322, 328 
Index, Congregation of the, 336 
Indulgences, question of, 312, 313 
Industry, the French, in XV cen- 
tury, 202; in XVI century, 
395» 396; under Henry IV, 440 
Infantry, French, 388 
Innocent III (Pope), 5 
Innocent IV (Pope), 2, 5, 130 
Innocent VI (Pope), 142, 144, 

175 
Innocent VII (Pope), 160 
Innocent VIII (Pope), 179, 446 



Inquisition, the, 239, 241, 342, 346, 

.399 
Institutes, of the Christian Religion, 

329, 330, 398; of Loisel, 

436 
Institutions, judiciary of France, 

iï8, 119 
Intendants, 382 

Interregnum, the Great, 2, 3, 4 
Invination, 322, 328 
Irnerius, 283 
Isabella of Austria, 451 
Isabella of Bavaria (Queen of 

France), 81, 83, 84, 91, 92; 

Regent of the Realm, 89; death 

of, 104 
Isabella the Catholic (Queen of 

Castile), 238, 259, 261; m. 

Ferdinand of Aragon, 237; 

death of, 241 ; struggle of, 

against Spanish aristocracy, 

238, 239 
Isabella, Clara Eugenia, daughter 

of Philip II (of Spain), 345, 

420, 425 
Isabella (of England), 30 
Isabella (of Spain), iv. of Emanuel 

of Portugal, 241 
Isabella of Poland, 447 
Isabella of Portugal, 302 
Isador, Cardinal, 229 
Italy, 5; in the XIV century, 169; 

during the Schism, 178; loss of, 

by French (1519-1520), 219; 

decadence of art in, 308 
Italian comedy, 291 
Ivan (I) Kalita (of Russia), 454 
Ivan III (Vasilievitch) the Great 

(of Russia), (1462-1505), 455 ; 

intercourse with Europe, 458 
Ivan (IV) (of Russia), (1533- 

1584), 455, 456; end of Tartar 

domination in Russia, 456; 

named "the terrible," 456; 

successors of, 457, 458 
Ivan of Russia (son of "the terri- 
ble "), killed by his father, 457 
Ivry, Battle of, 423 

Jacque, 70 
Jacquerie, 45, 418 

Jagellon, m. Edwige of Hungary, 
455 



INDEX 



477 



James of Aragon (King of Ma- 
jorca), 38 

James V (of Scotland), m. Mary 
(Guise) of Lorraine, 365 

Janissaries, the, 223, 230, 448 

Jansenists, 311 

Jansson, Lorenz of Harlem, 249 

Jarnac, Battle of, 406, 419 

Jeanne of Flanders, 35 

Jeanne of Burgundy, 37 

Jeanne, Countess of France, w. of 
Alphonso of Poitiers, 10 

Jeanne, Princess, daughter of Louis 
X (of France), 29, 31 

Jeanne (of France), m. Louis, 
Duke of Orleans, 196, 213 

Jeanne of France, m. Philip of 
Evreux, 235 

Jeanne of Penthièvre, 34, 35, 52 

Jehu, 433. 

Jenkinson, at court of Ivan IV, 458 

Jenson, 250 

Jerome of Prague, 150, 162; ex- 
ecution of, 165 

Jesuits, the, 333; motto of, 333 

Jews, Spanish, their expulsion, 241 

Joan of Arc, 95; at Chinon, 97; 
captivity of, 99; trial of, 100; 
death of (1431), 102; rehabili- 
tation of, 107 

Joanna of Champagne, 11, 13 

Joanna of Spain, " the mad," m. 
Philip, Archduke of Austria, 
241; insanity of, 242, 338 

Jobst of Moravia, 148, 149 

John II (of Aragon), 235, 236, 237 

John V (of Armagnac), 195 

John (of Austria), kills Emperor 
Albert, his uncle, 134 

John of Bethencourt, 251 

John (of Bohemia), 36, 39, 140 

John III, Duke of Brittany, 34 

John of Bruges, 307 

John of Calabria, 191 

John I (of Castile), 235 

John II (of Castile), 235 

John, Count of Angoulême, 85 

John (of Denmark), 452 

John of Estrées, 389 

John, " the Fearless," Duke of Bur- 
gundy, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 
163 ; assassination of, 90 

John I (of France), 29 



John (II) the Good, (of France), 
(Duke of Normandy), 32, 35, 
38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 47, 49; death 
of, 48 

John of Leyden, 323, 324 

John of Bohemia (Luxemburg), 
99, 100 

John of Luxemburg (son of Henry 
VII), 134, 138, 139 

John (IV), of Montfort, 35, 50 
John (V) of Montfort, 52, 56, 

82 
John of Nesme, 441 
John of Nevers, 83 
John XXII (Pope), 139, 140 
John XXIII (Pope), 160, 163, 164, 

165, 178 
John II (of Portugal), 251, 252, 

259 
John of Procida, 11 
John, Duke of Saxony, 321 
John Frederick, Duke of Saxony, 

325 
John of Vienne, 37, 59 
John of Zeliv, 150 
Joining of the Seas, 442 
Jouvenel des Ursins, John, 81, 86, 

187, 191 . 
Jova, Paul, historian, 366 
Joyeuse, 414 
Juan, Don, of Austria, 448 ; wins 

battle of Lepanto (1571), 343; 

in the Low Countries, 350 
Judith, 417 
Julian calendar, reformed by 

Gregory XIII, 336 
Juliers, 34 
Julius II (Pope), 179, 215, 216, 

217, 218, 219, 220, 244, 295, 

297, 299 
Julius III (Pope), 295, 335, 336 
Junta, Holy, of Avila, 338 

Kappel, Battle of (1531), 328 

Karin Mansdatter, 453 

Karle, William, 46 

Keeper of the Seals, 380 

Kempis, Thomas à, 160 

Khan of Tartary, 25 

Knights, German, and the peasants, 

309 
Knights Templar, trial of the, 20, 

21, 28 



478 



INDEX 



Knowles, Robert, 56 

Knutsson, Karl {see Charles VIII 

[of Sweden]) 
Kossovo, Battle of (1389), 223 
Kovilovitsch, Milosch, legend of, 

224 
Kraft, Adam, 306 
Kremlin, the, 457 

Ladies' Peace, the. {See Treaty of 
Cambrai) 

Ladislaus (of Bohemia), 154, 457 

Ladislaus (of Bohemia) the Post- 
humous, 155, 156 

Ladislaus (of Hungary), 156, 227 

Ladislaus (of Poland), 155, 446 

Laffemas, Barthélémy de, 440, 
441 

Laforêt, Pierre de, 40 

Lagarde, Baron of, 398 

La Hire, 93, 98 

Lainez, 333, 334 

Lamentable Night, the, 270 

Lamoral, Count of Egmont, 346, 
347; executed, 348 

Lancaster, Duke of, 35, 50, 56 

Landfriede, 154 

Landriano, Battle of, 364 

Langue d'Oc, 44, 112, 121, 123 

Langue d'Oïl, 40, 44, 59, 112 

Lannoy, 358, 361; Viceroy of Na- 
ples, 362 

Lano, Michel di, 176 

La Noue, 404 

Larcher, 425 

La Roche-Abeille, Battle of, 406 

La Roche-Derrien, 37 

Lascaris, family of, 221 

Las Casas, Bartholomew, 263 ; 
*' Universal Protector of all 
Indians," 276 

Las Navas de Tolosa, Battle of 
(1212), 234 

Last Judgment, the, 296, 297 

Latini, Brunetto, 281 

Laupen, Battle of (1339), 136 

Lautrec, 359, 364 

Lawyers and Royal Justice, the, 

14 

Lazarovitch, Stephen, 225 

League, of Cognac (1526), 363; 
Catholic, 411, 412, 416, 427, 
436, refuses to recognize 



Henry IV, 420, its excesses, 
425; of Cambrai, 216, 244; 
Hanseatic, 147; Holy, parties 
to, 219; of Malines, 220; Sec- 
ond, of the Nobles, 192; Third, 
of the Nobles, 194; Fourth, of 
the Nobles, 197; of the Public 
Weal (1464), 189; Schmal- 
kaldic, 365, articles of, 323, 
its members, 323 

Leagues, the Provincial, 29 

Leaguers, French, proclaim Charles 
X, 420, 42-^, .423, 425, 429; the 
Spanish, 4^^^-^ 

Lecoq, Robert, 43, 44 

Lefèvre of Etaples, 397 

Leicester, Earl of, 352 

Leipzig, disputation of, 315 

Leo X (Pope), 220, 291, 295, 299, 
313, 314, 315, 316, 332, 355, 
356, 358, 359, 360, 385 

Leon, Ponce de, 259, 266 

Leopold III (Duke of Austria), 
135, 136 

Lepanto, Battle of (1571), 343, 

449 

Lescun, 362 

Lesdiguières, 430, 431 

Lesparre, Sire of, 359 

Leyden, siege of, 349 

Leyva, Antonio de, 358 

Liberty of a Christian Man (Lu- 
ther's), 316 

Lilio, the astronomer, 336 

Limousin, Leonard, 376 

Limoges, 52, 56 

Lincestre, 417 

Lippi, Filippo, 287, 288 

Lithuanians, the, 454, 455; united 
with the Poles (1469), 455 

Lollards, the, 161 

Longueville, 52, 430 

Lorenzo (de' Medici), the Mag- 
nificent. {See Medici) 

Lorraine, Cardinal of, 399, 402 

Lorraine, Duke of, 191, 320 

Lorraine, house of, 3 

Louis, Duke of Bourbon, 77, 85, 
89; reconciled with Charles 
VII, 104, 105 

Louis (IV) of Bavaria, (Emperor 
of Germany), 34, 129, 131, 
139, 140, 152, 175 



INDEX 



479 



Louis, Prince of Condé, 400, 404, 

405 ; death of, 406 ; medal 

struck by, 417, 419 
Louis IX, Saint fof France), 6, 

12; canonization of, 18 
Louis (X) the Quarrelsome, (of 

Navarre), 13; reign of, 28, 29 
Louis XI (of France), 123, 182, 

186, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 
199, 202, 203, 237, 238, 250; 
accession of, 187; character of, 

187, 188 ; early years of reign 
of, 188, 189; domestic enemies 
of, 195; death of, 200; army 
under, 201 ; judicial, financial 
and religious policies under, 
202 

Louis XII (of France), Duke of 
Orléans, 180, 204, 206, 207, 

209, 212, 215, 216, 217, 219, 
242, 243, 244; character of, 
218; death of, 220; m. Anne 
of Brittany, 213 ; m. Jeanne 
of France, 213; at Milan, 213; 
Turkish relations of, 447 

Louis (,11) Jagellon (of Hungary), 

156, 446 
Louis of Nassau, 347, 348 ; death 

of, 349 
Louis of Nevers, 34 
Louis, Duke of Orléans, 83, 84, 85, 

89, 212 
Louis of Requesens, 349 
Louis of Saint-Angel, 257 
Louise of Savoy, 354, 355, 360, 364, 

365, 376; Regent of France, 

362; Turkish negotiations with, 

447 

Louvre, reconstructed, 63 

Lovers' War, the, 413 

Low Countries, art in, 307; eco- 
nomic situation in, 352 

Loyola, Ignatius, 333, 334 

Ludovico II Moro, 184, 185, 209, 

210, 211, 213, 214 
Luini, Bernardino, 294 
Luque, 272 
Lusignan, Hugh de, 53 

Luther, Martin, 306 ; personality of, 

310, 311; religious ideas of, 

311, 312; doctrinal system of, 
312; and the Indulgences, 312, 
313; Ninety-five theses of, 313, 



314, 315; at the Leipzig Dis- 
putation, 315; breach of, with 
Rome, 316; reformation trea- 
tises of, 316, 317; at the Diet 
of Worms, 317, 318; condem- 
nation of, 318; his translation 
of the Bible, 319; and the 
Sacramentarians, 319; and 
the Peasants' War, 319, 320; 
and the Confession of Augs- 
burg, 322; m. Catharine von 
Bora, 324; death of, 324; and 
Zwingli, 328 

Luxemburg, house of, 34, 137 

Lyons, part of France, 24 

Machiavelli, Niccolo, 290, 291, 372 
Magellan, 264; voyage of circum- 
navigation, 265 
Maillart, John, 46 
" Maillotins," insurrection of 

(1382), 78 
Mainz, Archbishop of, 3 
M aj estas, Carolina, 145 
Malatesta, i8o 
Malcontents (the Politique), 410; 

recognize Henry IV, 420, 429 
Mâle, Louis de, 79 
Maltôte of 1292, 27 
Mamelukes, 446 
Manfred, 2, 5, 11, 169 
Manfredi, Astorre, 180 
Mantegna, 288, 305 
Mantes, 51, 52 

Mantua, Marquis of, 212, 217 
Maraviglia, assassinated, 366 
Marble Table, the, 379 
Marcation, The Line of, 259 
Marcel, Etienne, 40; and the 

Dauphin, 42, 44, 45 ; Coup 

d'état of, 45 ; death of, 46 
Marchena, the astronomer, 259 
Marchfeld, Battle of (1278), 132 
Margaret of Anjou, 106, 197 
Margaret of Norway, daughter 

of Waldemar III (Atterdag) 

of Denmark, 450 
Margaret of Sicily, 31 
Margaret of Valois, m. Henry of 

Navarre, 407, 408 ; and the 

Lovers' War, 413 
Marguerite Walderaarsdatter, of 

Denmark, 450 



48o 



INDEX 



Maria of Hungary, m. Louis II, 

447 
Maria of Portugal, 343 
Marignano, Battle of (1515), 354, 

355, 356 
Marigny, Enguerrand de, 28 
Marina, 267 
Marine, the French, 71 ; in the XVI 

century, 390 
Marinette, The, 250 
" Marmousets," 80, 81, 82 
Marnix, Philip, of Saint Aldegonde, 

347, 349. 

Marseilles, siege of, 361 

Martin IV (Pope), 12 

Martin V (Pope), 164, 165, 166 

Martinuzzi, death of, 447 

Martyr, Peter, 402 

Mary of Burgundy, 156, 197, 199; 
m. Maximilian, 200 

Mary (Guise) of Lorraine, m. 
James V of Scotland, 365 ; Re- 
gent of Scotland, 369 

Mary of Hungary, 345, 346 

Mary Stuart (Queen of Scots), 
dau. of James V m. Francis 
II (King of France), 369; 376 

Mary Tudor, Princess of England, 
220; Queen of, 302 

Masaccio, 287, 297 

Massacre of Stockholm (Blodbad), 

451 
Mathias, Archduke of Austria, 350 
Mathias Corvinus (of Hungary), 

154, 155, 156, 233 
Matsys, Quentin, 308 
Matthiessen, John, 323, 324 
Maupertuis, 41 
Maurevert, 408 
Maurice of Nassau, 351 
Maurice of Saxony, 324, 325, 326, 

370 
Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, 

445 
Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, 
(Emperor of Germany), 133, 
154, 156, 197, 207, 208, 209, 
211, 212, 215, 216, 217, 220, 
306, 315, 317, 338, 355, 356; 
ideas of, 157; m. Mary of 
Burgundy, 200; death of, 357 
Maximilian II (of Germany), 445 
Maxiraus (Greek monk), 455 



Mayenne, 421, 422, 425, 426, 428, 

430, 431 
Medi, Master Nicholas, 103 
Medici, the rise of, 176; conspiracy 

against, 179; driven from 

Florence, 180 
Medici, Alexander de', 296 
Medici, Catherine de', 343, 368, 376, 

400, 401, 402, 405, 409, 411, 

415, 416; m. Henry II (King 

of France), 365 
Medici, Cosimo de', "the Elder," 

177, 284 
Medici, Giovanni de', "the Great 

Devil," 296 
Medici, Giovanni de' (Leo X), 220, 

299 
Medici, Giulio de' (Clement VII), 

296 
Medici, John de', 177 
Medici, Julian de', 177, 182 
Medici, Julian de' (Duke of Ne- 
mours), 296 
Medici, Lorenzo de', " the Magnifi- 
cent," 177, 182, 183, 284, 292, 

294, 296 
Medici, Lorenzo (II) de' (Duke of 

Urbino), 296, 355 
Medici, Cosimo (II) de', 296, 

304 
Medici, Piero de', 182 
Medici, Piero (II) de', 183, 210 
Medici, Sylvester de', 176 
Medina-Coeli, Duke of, 349 
Melanchthon (Philip Schwarzerde), 

314, 315, 318, 319, 322, 332, 

398 
Melfi, Bishop, 398 
Meloria, Battle of, 176 
Mendoza, Archbishop, 257 
Mendoza, Pedro de, 274 
Mercœur, 417 
Méré, Poltrot de, 404 
Merlin, 95 

Messina, Antonello de, 288 
Metz, loss of (1552), 340 
Meulan, 51 
Mexico, landing of Spaniards in, 

267; civilization of, 268; 

march of Cortez upon, 269; 

siege of City, 270 
Michael Angelo {see Buonarotti) 
Michael the Brave, 449 



INDEX 



481 



Milan, Duke of, 198; Visconti of, 

140 
Milhau, conventions of, terras of, 

411 
Minnin, 457 

Mirandola, Pico délia, 285 
Mohacs, Battle of (1526), 155, 156, 

447 
Moharamed I (Sultan), 226 
Mohammed II (Sultan), 156, 227, 
228, 229, 230, 231; and the 
Greeks, 231; and the Mussul- 
mans, 231; conquests of, 232; 
death of, 233 
Mohammed Abu Omeya (Sultan), 

343 

Molay, Jacques de, 22 

Monarchy, the French, new char- 
acter of, 62 ; definitely organ- 
ized, 63 ; splendor of, 63 ; abso- 
lute French, in XVI century, 
374; opposition to, 386 

Moncontour, Battle at, 406, 419 

Mongols, the, 9, 225 

Monluc, 370, 399, 403, 411 

Mons-en-Puelle, 23 

Montaperti, Battle of, 176 

Montesquiou, 406 

Montezuma II (of Mexico), 267, 
269, 270 

Montgomery, 373, 404 

Montlhéry, Battle of (1465), 190 

Montmorency, the " Fabius of 
France," 366; Constable, 369, 
371, 402, 405 ; death of, 406 

Montpellier, seigneury of, 38 

Montpensier, Duchess of, 415, 416, 
420 

Montpensier, Gilbert de, 211, 212 

Moors, I, 7; decadence of, 235; of 
Granada, 240 

Morat, Battle at, 199 

Morbus numericus, 60 

More, Thomas, 332 

Morgarten, defeat of Austrians at 

(1315), 135 

Mount Cassel, 32 

Miihlberg, Battle of (1547), 325 

Muhldorf-on-the-Inn, 139 

Mujiks, 458 

Muller, Waldsee, 264 

Munster, capture of, by Anabap- 
tists, 323 



Munzer, Thomas, 319, 320 
Murad I (Sultan), 223, 224 
Murad II (Sultan), 153, 226, 227, 

228 
Murad III (Sultan), 449 
Mustapha, 448 
Mutation, 67 
Mystics, 159, 161 
Mysticism, 160, 161 

Najera, Battle of, 54 

Nantes, 35; the Edict of (1598), 

431; its provisions, 432 
Naples, granted to Charles of 

Anjou, 23 ; conquest of the 

Realm of, 211 
Narvaez, expedition against Cor- 

tez, 269, 270 
Nassau, house of, 3 
Navarre, 235 
Navarro, Pedro, 219, 355 
Nemours, Duke of, 194, 196, 219, 

296 
Nestor, chronicle of, 458 
Netherlands, religious questions in, 

345 ; Spanish government of, 

345 

Neville's Cross, Battle of, 37 

Nevski, Alexander, Prince of 
Vladimir, 454 

" New Christians," 239, 343 

New La<ws, the, 275 

Nice, Truce of, 366 

Nicholas of Cusa, 166 

Nicholas of Pistna, 150 

Nicholas III (Pope), 132, (anti- 
Pope), 140 

Nicholas V (Pope), 107, 123, 177, 
178, 179, 229, 284 

Nicopolis, 83; Battle of (1396), 
225 

Ninety-fi've Theses, The, 313, 314 

Nobility of the German Nation 
(Luther's), 316 

Nobles, the French, 206; discred- 
ited, 71 ; their dress, 377 

Nogaret, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28 

Nominalists, 165 

Normandy, Edward landed in, 35 

Notaras, 230, 231 

Novara, defeat of Ludovico at, 214; 
French crushed at (1513), 220 

Novi, Paul, Doge of Genoa, 216 



482 



INDEX 



Odet of Châtillon, Cardinal, 399 

Oecolampada (the Humanist), 
328, 331 

Olaf, 452 

Oldenburg-Holstein, house of, 3 

Oliverotto, 181 

Olivetan (Peter Robert), 329 

Olmedo Bartholomew, 267 

Opède, 398 

Opus M a jus, 256 

Orcagna, 286 

Orcan (Sultan), 222 

Order, of the Sword, 8, 152, 455; 
Teutonic, 8, 152, 455, its prop- 
erty secularized, 321 ; of the 
Temple, 20; of the Hospi- 
tallers, 22; of the Star, 39; 
of Saint Michael, 202 ; of Al- 
cantara, 240; of Calatrava, 
240; of Saint James, 240; of 
Augustinian Friars, 311; of 
Jesus, 333; of the Golden 
Fleece, 348 ; of Notre Dame du 
Mont Carmel, 443 ; of Knights 
of Rhodes, 446 

Ordinance, Grand, of 1355, 40; 
Grand, of 1357, 43; of Vin- 
cennes, 59; of 1302, 64; the 
Great Cabochien (1413), 86, 
87, 88; of Orléans, 402; of 
Moulins, provisions of, 405 ; 
of Blois, 413 

Orellana, 275 

Oresme, Nicholas, 60; his Traité 
de la sphère, 75 

Orient, the, 8 

Orléans, siege of, 93 ; relief of, 

97 

Ornano, 415 

Orsini, 179, 181; family of, 6 

Os Lusiades, 255 

Osman (Othman), (Sultan), 222 

Osmanli, the, 222, 223, 226 

Otompan, oak of, 270 

Otto of Brandenburg, 132 

Otto of Burgundy, signs Treaty of 
Vincennes with Philip, 13 

Ottokar U (of Bohemia), 130, 131, 
132; possessions of, 129 

Ottomans, 222 

Ovando, 260, 263 ; and Diego Co- 
lumbus, 263 

Oviedo, 343 



Pacification of Ghent (1576), 349, 
350 

Padilla, John de, 339 

Palatinate of the Rhine, 3 

Paleologus, 455; family of, 221 

Paleologus, Constantine XHI, 228, 
229 

Paleologus, Emanuel, 225, 226 

Paleologus, Michael, 8, 221 

Palermo, massacre at (Sicilian 
Vespers), 11 

Palice, La, 219, 362 

Palissy, Bernard, 393 ; Essays of, 
394 

Palladio of Vicenza, 300, 304 

Panaghia, 230 

Panicale, Masolino da, 287 

Papacy, i, 2, 5, 159, 163; at the 
end of the XV century, 178, 
179 

Papal Jubilee of 1300, 18 

Papal States, i 

Paper, its invention, 248 

Paré, Ambrose, 75 

Paris, siege of, 416, (1599), 423, 
424 

Parisian Revolt, the, 45 

Parlement, 14, 15, 29, 58, 64, 65, 
66, 87, 88, 91, 92, 118, 383, 
384; division of, into three 
Chambers, 26; head of the ju- 
dicial organization of, 26; of 
Rennes, 189; established at 
Milan, 214 

Parlements at death of Henry H, 

384 
Parliament, 31 
Paruta, Paul, 291 
Patay, Battle of, 98 
Paul IV (of Caraiïa), 336, 371 
Paul n (Pope), 190 
Paul ni (Pope), 295, 297, 332, 

334, 335, 336, 366 
Paul IV (Pope), 295, 336, 371 
Paule, Francis de, Saint, 200 
Paulette, the, 438 
Paulin, Captain, 389 
Pavia, Battle of (1525), 361, .362, 

365 
Pays d'Election, 112, 121 
Pays d'Etats, 121 
Pazzi, Conspiracy of, against the 

Medici, 179, 182 



INDEX 



483 



Peace, of Pontoise, 47; of Vin- 
cennes, 84; of Bicêtre (14Ï0), 
85; secret, of Chartres (1409), 
85; of Augsburg (1555), 326; 
of Passau (1552), 326, 370; 
of Vervins, 345, 431; Per- 
petual, 356; "The Ladies','' 
364, 365; of Amboise, 405; of 
Longjumeau, 406; of Malassis, 
406 ; of La Rochelle, 409 ; of 
Beaulieu (Peace of " Mon- 
sieur"), 411; of Bergerac, 
413; of Fleix, 413; of Gold 
(1586), 444 

Peasants, German, and the knights, 
309 ; Bundschuh, association of, 
in Swabia, 310; Tivelve Arti- 
cles, 320 

Peasants' War, 319 

Pedro III (of Aragon), 234 

Pellevé, Cardinal, 426 

Penthièvre, Duke of, 108 

Perez, Antonio, 341, 343; exile of, 
344; Memoirs of, 344 

Perez, John, Prior of Rabida, 257 

Péronne, interview breaking of the 
Treaty of, 193, 194 

Perugino, 288, 297 

Peruvian civilization and the In- 
cas, 273 

Pescara, 358, 359, 361 

Peter III (of Aragon), 11, 12, 234 

Peter of Covilham, 252 

Peter of Crâon, 81, 82 

Peter the Cruel, 53, 54, 234 

Peter, Martyr of Anghiera, 259 

Peter of Savoy, 24 

Petit, John, 85 

Petrarch, 143, 281, 282, 283, 290 

Philibert of Orme, 396 

Philibert Emanuel of Savoy, 345 

Philip, Archduke of Austria, 213, 
216; m. Joanna of Spain, 
241 ; and Ferdinand, 242 

Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 
56, 77, 79, 80, 82; possessions 
^ of, 77, 78 

Philip the Good, 91, 92, 94; Lieu- 
tenant-General, 99, 100, 103, 
Ï08, 187, 189; reconciled with 
Charles VII, 104 

Philip (of France), son of John 
the Good ; at Poiters, 41 



Philip (II) Augustus (of France), 
12, 13, 22, 63 

Philip (III) the Bold (of France), 
173 j government of, 10; ac- 
quires counties of Valois, 
Àlençon, and Perche, 11; death 
of (1285), 12 

Philip (IV) the Fair (of France), 
21, 138, 169, 173, 235; do- 
mestic policy of, 12 ; reign of, 
12; acquires Burgundy, Cham- 
pagne, Brie, Bar, Navarre, Lo- 
magne, Auvillars, La Marche, 
Angoulême, Lille, Douai, Bé- 
thune, Tournai, .Mortagne, and 
Quercy, 13; activity of agents 
of, 15; and Boniface, 17, 18; 
religious policy of, 17; trial 
of Templars under, 20, 21, 22; 
army under, 22; wars of, 23; 
clients of, 24; territorial ac- 
quisitions of, 24; centralized 
administration of, 25 ; King's 
council under, 26; local admin- 
istration of, 26; Parlement un- 
der, 26 ; financial administra- 
tion of, 27; feudal reaction 
under, 28 ; summary of reign 
of, 28 

Philip (V) the Tall (of Poitiers), 
(King of France), 13; reign 
of, 29 

Philip (VI) of Valois (King of 
France), 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 67, 
140, 141 ; end of reign, 37 ; in- 
crease of Royal Domain under, 

Philip of Hesse, 321, 323, 325 
Philip Evreux of Navarre, 31, 

. ?35 

Philip II (of Spain), 277, 301, 302, 
326, 337, 338, 340, 342, 344, 
346, 351, 352, 372, 404, 410, 
413, 418, 425, 430, 431, 459; 
succession of, 341 ; representa- 
tive of Catholicism, 345; judg- 
ment upon reign of, 353 

" Picorée, Madam la," 403 

Pinchon, Paul, 441 

Pinturrichio, 288 

Pinzon, the brothers, 258 

Piombo, Sebastian del, 303 

Pisano, Niccolo, 289 



484 



INDEX 



Pistolet, 388 

Pius II (Pope), 168, 179 

Pius III (Pope), 181, 215 

Pius IV (Pope), 335 

Pius V (Pope), 295 

Pizarro, Fernando, 272, 275 

Pizarro, Francisco, 272, 274; death 

of, 274 
Pizarro, Gonzales, 272, 275 
Pizarro, Juan, 272 
Plassin, 28 
Platonic Academy, at Florence, 

284 
Plessis-les-Tours, interview at, 

416 
Podiebrad, George, 155 
Poets, minor Italian, 292 
Poggio, 284 
Poissy, 36 

Poitiers, Battle of, 41, 42, 71 
Poitou, joined to the crown, 29 
Pojarski, 457 
Poland, last Jagellon king of 

(1572), 457 
Poles, the, 454, 455 
Pole, Reginald, 332 
Pole, William de la, 94 
Politian, 292 
Politiques, the (Malcontents), 410; 

recognize Henry IV, 420, 429 
Pollajuolo, 289 
Polo, Marco, 251 
Ponthieu, 36 

Pontorson, Captain of, 50 
Porbus, family of, 308 
Porcari, Stephen, 178 
Portugal, 235 
Portugal, Cardinal Don Henry of, 

344 

Portulans, 256 

"Pospolite," 457 

Possevino (The Jesuit), 459 

Pot, Philip, Grand Marshal of 
Burgundy, 205, 206 

Poynet, John, his Political Power, 
386 ^ 

Pragmatic sanction, of Bourges 
(1438), 105, 124, 125, 167; re- 
voked by Louis XI, 189, 206; 
Imperial Election, 140; of 
Mayence, 167 

Praguerie, The, 105, 106 

Praha, 146 



Presidencies, the, 384 

Prester, John, 252 

Pretorian Militia (Streltzi), 456 

" Priests' Lane," 445 

Primatico, 396 

Primitives, the, 285 

Princes, the. Lay and Ecclesiastical, 

3 ; Protestant, 321 
Printing, invention of, 248; French, 

396 
Prokop, 151 

Prose, of XVI century, Italian, 290 
*' Protestant," origin of term, 321 
Provinces, the French, officers of, 

27 ; administration of, 69 
Przemyslids, 2, 131 
Pulci, Luigi, 292 

Qualpopoca, 269 

Quattrocentisi, 286 

Quercy, joined to French territory, 

13 
Quetzalcoatl, 268 

Raimondi, Marc Antonio, 305 

Raoul of Caours, 55 

Raoul of Nesle, 39 

Raphael (Santi), 289, 294, 297, 
305; at Rome, 297; master- 
pieces of, 298 ; and Leo X, 299 

Rasilly, 442 

Raspe, Henry, 2 

Ravallière, La, 442 

Ravenna, Battle of (1512), 219 

Raymond of Cordova, 219, 355 

Real Audiencia, 263 

Realists, the, 165 

Realists, the, 286 

Receivers-general, 60 

Reformers, the Catholic, 332 

Regalia, 67 

Rembrandt, 308 

Renaissance, i, 9; general char- 
acter of, 279, 280, 281 

Renaudie, Sieur de la, 400, 417 

Renaut, 442 

Rene (of Anjou), Duke of Lor- 
raine, 106, 201 

René II (of Lorraine), 197, 198, 
199 

Renée of Ferrara, 220, 332 

Rennes, 35 

Rense, declaration of (1338), 140 



INDEX 



485 



Renty, Battle of, 370 
Repartimientos, 276 
Requesens, Louis of, 349 
Resources of France and England 

in Hundred Years' War, 33 
Retz, Gille de, "Bluebeard," 126; 

execution of, 127 
Rhodes, siege of, 446 
Ribaudequin, 117 
Richard II (of England), 56, 83 
Richard III (of England), 207 
Richard of Cornwall, 2 
Richelieu, 436 
Richmond, Constable, 106 
Rienzi, Cola di, 174, 175, 176 
Rigsraad, 450, 451, 452 
Rincon, 447 ; assassination of, 448 
Rio Salado, Battle of (1340), 234 
Ritters, 388 

Robbia, Luca della, 177, 289 
Robert of Anjou (King of Naples), 

139 
Robert of Artois, 34 
Robert of Béthune, 23 
Roger of Loria, defeats Charles 

the Cripple (1284), 12 
Romagnano, Battle of, 361 
Roman Law, 384; studied in 

France, 14 
Roman, Saint, Archbishop of Aix, 

398 
" Romania, The," 221 
Romano, Giulio, 298, 396 
Romanoff, Anastasia, wife of Ivan 

IV, 456; her death, 456 
Romanoff, family of, 457 
Rome, sack of, 363; without Popes, 

173 

Romée, Isabella (mother of Joan 
of Arc), 95 

Ronsard, 376 

Roosebeck, Battle of, 79, 80 

Roque, John de la, 391 

Rose, 417, 426 

Rosny (Sully), 427, 434, 438; his 
Economies Royales, 439; eco- 
nomic policy of, 440, 44Ï, 442, 

443 
** Rosnys," 442 

Rothenburg, Burgraviate of, 3 
Rousell, Gerard, 397 
Roussillon, 209 
Routiers, 55 



Roxalana, 448 

Royal Domain, the, growth of, 62, 

120; aggrandizement of, soi 
Royal Household, the Petitions of, 

66 
Royalty, progress of, 14 
Rubens, 308 

Rudolf II (of Germany), 449 
Rudolph (of Bohemia), 134 
Rudolph (of Hapsburg), 130, 131; 

and the German princes, 132; 

and the towns, 132, 133; death 

of, 135 
Rupert (of Bavaria), 149 
Rurik, 454 
Russia, in XIV and XV centuries, 

454; struggle of, for the 

Baltic, 454; in XVI century, 

457, 458; foreigners in, 458, 

459 ; status of women in, 

458 
Rustem, Grand Vizir, 448 

Sacramentarians, the, 319 

Saint André, 399; Marshal of, 402, 
404 

Saint Bartholomew's Day, 419; 
massacre of, 349, 408 ; responsi- 
bility for, 409 

Saint Jacque, Battle of, 201 

Saint-Pol, Count of, 191, 193, 194, 
196, 364 

Saint-Tron, Battle of, 192 

Saint Trond, confederation of, 347 

Saint-Quentin, Battle of, 341, 371, 

.372 
Saintonge, joined to the French 

crown, 29 
Saisset, Bernard, Bishop of 

Pamiers, 19 
Salade, 70, 117 
Saladin tenth, 67 
Sale of offices, the, 384 
Salic Law, the, 29, 63, 425 
Salisbury, Earl of, 93, 94 
Saluzzo, Marquis of, 209, 364 
Salviati, Archbishop, 182 
Salviati, family of, 182 
Sampson, Bernard, 327 
Sannazaro, 293 
San Serverino, 212 
Sansovino, 300 
Santa Fé, convention of, 261 



486 



INDEX 



Sarpi, Paul, his History of the 

Council of Trent, 291 
Sarto, Andrea del, 294 
Satire " Ménipée," 425, 426 
Savonarola, Jerome, 183, 184, 212, 

285, 294; death of, 184; party 

of, 210 
Savoy, Duke of, 108, 198 
Saxons, 3 
Scaliger, Joseph, his Joining of the 

Seas, 442 
Scander-Beg, 227, 228, 232 
Scandinavia, 7 
Schinner, Mathias (Cardinal of 

Sion), Bishop of Sion, 218, 

327, 355 

Schism, the Great, 149, 159, 160, 
178; the New, 167 

Schmalkalde, war of, 323 

Schœffer, Peter, 249 

Schoen, Martin (Schongauer of 
Colmar), 305 

Schwartz, Berthold, 247 

Science, French, in the XIV cen- 
tury, 75 

Scot, William the (the Monk of 
Saint Denis), 17 

Scotland, 34 

Sebastian (of Portugal), 255, 344 

" Sedition of the Church Bells," 

453 

Segovia, edict of, 347 

Seiim I (Sultan), 446 

Selim (II) "the Sot" (Sultan), 
448, 449 

Seminara, Battle of, 215 

Sempach, Battle of (1386), 137 

Seneschal, 27; functions of, sup- 
pressed, 26 

Sepoys (Spahis), 223 

Serres, Oliver de, 440 

Servetus, Michael, 330 

Sforza, family of, 180 

Sforza, Catharine, 180 

Sforza, Francesco, 177, 190 

Sforza, Francesco II (second son 
of Ludovico), 359, 365, 366 

Sforza, Galeazzo Maria, 185 

Sforza, Giovanni Galeazzo, poi- 
soned by Ludovico, 185 

Sforza, John, 180 

Sforza, Ludovico, 293 

Sforza, Maximilian, 220 



Siberia, acquired by Russia (1582), 

456 
Sichman, Prince of Bulgaria, 224 
Sicilian Vespers (1282), the, 11 
Sicily, granted to King of Aragon, 

23 
Sickingen, Franz von, 310, 319 
Sidonia, Medina, Duke, 257, 259 
Sigbrid, 450 
Sigismund, Archduke of Austria 

(Emperor of Germany), 149, 

152, 153, 154, 160, 163, 164, 

165, 166, 167, 197, 225; and 

Hussites, 151 
Sigismund of Sweden, 457 
Signorelli, Luca, 287 
Sinigaglia, massacre of, 181 
Sixteen, the, faction of, 425, 

429 
Sixtus IV (Pope), 179, 182, 216, 

284, 285, 288 
Sixtus V (Pope), 336, 414 
" Skinners, The," 106 
Slavs, Polish, i, 8; Russian, i, 8, 

444 

Sluys, Battle of (1340), 34 

Soarez, Ferdinand, 254 

Society of Jesus, 333 

Society, classes of under Henry IV, 
436 

Sokkoli, 448 

Soldoyiers, 70 

Soleure, Truce of, 198 

Solis, landed in Mexico, 262 

Solyman (I) *' the Magnificent" 
(Sultan), 302, 309, 339, 362, 
365, 367, 369, 446; in Hungary, 
446, 447 ; family of, 448 ; suc- 
cessors of, 448 

Sorel, Agnes, 123 

Spahis (Sepoys), 223 

Spaniards, The Landing of the, in 
Mexico, 267 

Spanish Adventurers in America, 
The, 262 

" Spanish Fury, The," 349 

Spifame, Bishop, 398 

Staupitz, Vicar General of the 
Augustinians, 312 

Storch, Nicholas, of Zwickau, 319 

Straparole, 291 

Strogonoff, 456 

Stuart, Robert, 40(5 



INDEX 



487 



Sture, Sténo, conquers the Danish 
invaders at Brunkberg (1471), 
452 

Sture, Steno II, 452; death at 
Boegesund, 452 

Sture, Swante Nilsson, 452 

Sublime Porte, origin of term, 232; 
French alliance with, 365 

Sunna, 223 

Suppôts, 125 

Suzanne, wife of Constable Bour- 
bon, 360 

Swabians, 3 

Sweden, reformation in, 331; be- 
fore Gustavus Vasa, 452 

Swiss Confederation, The, 136 

Switzerland, 444; reformation in, 
327 ; in treaty of Westphalia, 

444 
Synod of Upsala (1593), declares 
King of Sweden must be Lu- 
theran, 454 
Szapolyai, John (of Hungary), 447 
Szapolyai, John Sigismund, 447 

" Taborites," 150, 167 

Taille, 67, 112, 115, 119, 120, I2i, 

189, 212, 387, 389, 437 
Talbot, Earl of Suffolk, 94, 98, 

106, 107, 108 
Tamerlane (Timur the Lame, 

Timur Lenc), 225, 226, 455 
Tanguy du Chastel, 90, 91 
Tannenberg, Battle of (1410), 153 
Tardif, 425 
Tartars, 9 

Tasso, Torquato, 292 
Tassoni, 293 

Tavannes, 399, 406, 408, 409, 411 
Tell, William, Legend of, 135 
Teniers, 308 
Terem, 458 
Tetzel, 314 

Theologians, The French, 162 
Third Estate, 16, 17, 29, 42, 43, 

206; and the townspeople, 72, 

73 ; in France in XV century, 

127, 128 
Thousand, The {Opretchnike), 456 
Timar, the, 224 
Timur-Tash, 223 
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), 289, 

301, 302, 308 



Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), 289; 
works of, 301, 302, 308 

Toro, Battle of, 238 

Torquemada, 239 

Toscanelli, 256, 257 

Toul, Loss of (1552), 340 

Tournaments, 377 

Tours, Truce of, provisions of, 105 

Towns, 4; Flemish, 79; German, 
of XIV century, 146; Italian, 
171, 172; Spanish, and Cath- 
olic Kings, 239; revolt of the 
Spanish, 338, 339 

Townspeople, The, and the Third 
Estate, 72 

Tractatus de Ecclesia, 162 

Trastamara, Henry of, 53 ; Du 
Guesclin's army joins, 54 

Treaty, of Meaux bestows vast 
territory upon Capetian mon- 
arch, 10; of Vincennes gives 
Burgundy to France, 13 ; of 
Montreuil (1299), 23; of 
Anagni, 23 ; of Tarascon gives 
Sicily to King of Aragon 
(1299), 23; of Villeneuve-lès- 
Avignon, 38; of Brétigny, 47; 
of London (1359), 47, of 
1514, 220; of Pamplona, 52; 
of Guerande, 52; of Tournai, 
80; of Troyes (1420), 91, 
125; of Arras, 103, provisions 
of, 104, 200; of Brunn, 145; 
of Furstenwald, 145 ; of Con- 
flans, 190, 191 ; of Saint-Maur, 
190, 191; of Ancenis, 192; of 
Senlis, 209; of Etaples, 209; 
of Narbonne, 209 ; of Granada, 
214, 243; of Szegedin, 227; 
of Santa Fé, 240, 241, con- 
vention of, 261, capitulations 
of, 262; of Cadan, 323, 325; 
of Cateau-Cambrésis, 341, 346, 
448; of Joinville (1585), 345, 
terms of, 414, 418; of Fri- 
bourg, 356; of Noyon, terms 
of, 356; of Viterbo, 356; of 
Madrid (1526), 362, provi- 
sions of, 363; of Cambrai 
(1529), (The Ladies' Peace), 
364, 365; of Ardres, 367, 368; 
of Crespy, 367, 368; of Friede- 
wald, 370; of Charabord, 370; 



488 



INDEX 



of Amboise, 404; of Saint 
Germaine-en-Laye, 407 ; of Ne- 
mours, 414 
Treaties of Blois, 215, 216, (1505), 

243 
Treatises, The Three Great Ref- 
ormation, 317 
Trémoille (La), 212, 215, 220, 362, 

421 
Treves, Archbishop of, 3 
Trissino, 291 
Tristan, 203 ; brother of Philip III, 

II 
Tristan, the Hermit, 188 
Trivulsa, 211, 214, 220 
Troll, Gustav (Archbishop of Up- 

sala), 452, 453 
Truchsess, George (Archbishop of 

Cologne), 320; becomes Cal- 

vinist, 445 
"Tuchins," 79 
Turks, I, 8, 446 ; the Seljukian, in 

Asia Minor, 221, 222; their 

Conquests in Europe, 227 ; 

predecessors of Solyman, 445 ; 

diplomacy of, in XVI century, 

447 
Turlupins, the, 161 
Tivel've Articles, The, 320 
Tycho-Brahe, the astronomer, 451 

Ucello, Paolo, 288 

Udine, Giovanni da, 298 

Ulrich, Duke of Wurtemberg, 320, 

United Provinces, the, form repub- 
lic, 351 

University, of Paris, 68, 72, 75, 78, 
86, 88, 91, 92, 100, 163, 165; 
its humiliation, 125, 126; of 
Valencia, 108; of Leipzig, 150; 
of Prague (1348), 162, 163; 
of W^ittenberg, 313; of Leyden, 

349 
Urban IV (Pope), 3 
Urban V (Pope), 54, 176 
Urban VI (Pope), 5, 145, 159 
Utraquists (Calixtins), 150, 165, 

167 
Utrecht, Union of (1579), 350 

Valdez, Juan, 332 
Valdivia, Pedro de, 275 



Valentine Visconti, 204, 212 

Valladolid, Cortes of, 242 

Van Dyck, 308 

Vaneyck, 286 

Vaneyck, Hubert, 307 

Vaneyck, John, 307 

Vannes, 35 

Varna, Battle of (1444), 156, 227 

Vasa, Gustavus, 331, 365; elected 

King of Sweden, 451, 452; 

proclaimed King, 453 ; his suc- 
cessors, 453 
Vasa, John III; m. Catharine 

Jagellon, 454 
Vasa, Sigismund (of Poland), heir 

to Swedish throne (1592), 454 
Vasari, 294 
Vasili I (of Russia), Prince of 

Moscow, 455 
Vasili II (of Russia), 455 
Vasili III (of Russia), 455 
Vassy, massacre of, 403 
Vaucelles, Truce of, 370 
Vaucouleurs, interview of, 24 
Vehmgericht, 147 
Vela, Nuiïez de, 275 
Velasco, Don Fernando (Constable 

of Castile), 430 
Velasquez in Cuba, 266, 267, 269 
Venetian painters, the, 288 
Venetian Republic, the, 178 
Venice, humiliation of (1509), 217; 

artists of, 300, 303 
Vera de Plasencia, La, 371 
Verazzano, 391 
Verdun, loss of (1,552), 340 
Verneuil, Battle of, 93 
Veronese (Paolo Cagliari), 289, 

302 
Verocchio, Andrea del, 287, 289 
Vespucci, Amerigo, 264 
Viana, Don Carlos de, 236 
Viceroys, the, government of, 254 
Vienna, siege of, by Solyman 

(1529), 447 
Viglius of Aytta, 346 
Visnola, Jacopo Barozzi, 305 
Villani, Giovanni, 284, 290 
Villars, Sire de, 94 
Villeneuve-la-Hardie, 37 
Villes insignes, 68 
Vimory, Battle of, 414 
Vincent of Beauvais, 9, 250 



INDEX 



489 



Vincent Ferrier of Spain, Saint, 161 
Vinci, Leonardo da, 185, 287, 293, 

^.94 
Vindiciae contra tyrannos, 417 
Vischer, Peter, 306 
Visconti, 176 

Visconti, John Galeazzo, 149 
Vitellozzo Vitellozzi, 181 
Vitold, 455 
Viviers, Bishop of, surrenders half 

of the Vivarais to Philip, 24 
Vizir, Grand, 223, 232 
Volterra, Daniel of, 294 

W^aldeck, Franz von (Bishop of 

Munster), 323 
Waldemar II (of Denmark), 7 
Waldemar III (of Denmark) : At- 

terdag, 449 
Waldemar IV (of Denmark), 7, 

148 
Waldenses, 398 
Walter of Brienne, 176 
Wandonne, 99 
" War of the Three Henrys, The," 

414 
Warwick ("The King-maker"), 

192, 194 
Wenzel (of Bohemia), 131, 132, 

134, 148; elected King of the 

Romans, 146, 149 
Wetterau, Burgraviate of, 3 
Weyden, Roger van der, 308 
Whites, the, faction of, 176 
Wied, Hermann von (Archbishop 

of Cologne), 326 
William of Croy, 338 



William of Holland, 2 
William of Nangis, 24 
William of Rochefort, 205 
William the Silent (Prince of 
Orange), 346, 347, 348, 350, 
370; declared Stadtholder, 
349; assassination of (1584), 

351 
Willoughby, English Governor, 104 
Winchester, Cardinal Henry of, 99, 

100, 102, 103 
Winkelried, Arnold von, 137 
Wittelsbach, 137, 142, 144, 152 
Wlad Derakul, 227, 232 
Wohlgemuth of Nuremberg, 305 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 332, 359 
Women, régime of, 376 
Wurtemberg, house of, 3 
Wyclif, John, the " Evangelical 

Doctor," 150, 161, 162, 174, 

316 

Xaintrailles, 93 

Ximenes, Cardinal Francesco de 
Cisneros (Archbishop of To- 
ledo), 242, 332, 338 

Yacub, brother of Bajazet, 224 
Ysambard, Frère, 103 

Zeni, the brothers, 256 

Ziamet, the, 224 

Ziericzee, 23 

Zrinyi, Count of, 447 

Zwingli, Ulrich, 310, 327; and 

Luther. 328 ; death of> 329 
Zyska of Throcknow, John, 151 



AMERICAN HISTORICAL SERIES 

Under the editorship of Charles H. Haskins, Professor of 
History in Harvard University. 

A series of text-books intended, like the American Science 
Series, to be comprehensive, systematic, and authoritative. 
The series will aim to justify the title "American" not only 
b}^ its American authorship but also by specifically regarding 
American educational needs. 

The treatment will be descriptive as well as narrative, and 
due attention will be given to economic and social conditions 
and to institutional development. 

Ready 

Europe Since 1815. 

Bv Charles D. HazEN. School Edition. $3.00. Library Edition, 

$3-75. 
Historical Atlas. 

Bv William R. Shepherd, Professor in Columbia University. 
•^ $2.50. 

Atlas of Ancient History. 

By William R. Shepherd. 90 cents. 

American Diplomacy. 

By Carl Russell Fish, Professor in the University of Wisconsin. 
School Edition, $2.25. Library Edition, $2.75. 

History of England. 

By L. M. Larson, Professor in the University of Illinois. $1.40. 

In preparation 

Medieval and Modern Europe. 

By Charles W. Colby, Professor in McGill University. 

The Reformation. 

By Preserved Smith. 

The Renaissance. 

By Ferdinand Schevill, Professor in the University of Chicago. 

Europe in the XVH. and XVHI. Centuries. 

By Sidney B. Fay, Professor in Smith College. 

History of Greece. 

By Paul Shorey, Professor in the University of Chicago. 
History of Rome. 

By Jesse B. Carter, Director of the American School of Clas- 
sical Studies at Rome. 

History of Germany. 

By Guy Stanton Ford, Professor in the University of Minnesota. 
History of the United States. 

By Frederick J. Turner, Professor in Harvard University. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

34 West 330 Street New York 



KAZEK'S EITHOPE SINCE 1815 

By Charles Downer Hazen, Professor in Smith College. 
With fourteen colored maps. (In American Historical Series 
edited by Prof. Haskins of Harvard.) xv+830 pp. B3.00 net. 

A clear and concise account of European history from 
Waterloo to such recent matters as the Dreyfus Trial, church 
disestablishment in France, and the various Kussian Dumas. 

The author has paid fully as much attention to economic 
and social as to military matters, and has simplified his narrative 
by considering one country at a time for considerable periods. 
Europe's relations to her Colonies and to the United States are 
also considered. There is a full biblio-graphy of general works 
and of those bearing on each chapter and a full index. 

"A clear, comprehensive and impartial record of the bewildering 
changes in 1 urope. . . . Illuminatingrly clear. . . . Higrh praise for 
the execution of a difficult historical task must be accorded him," — JS'ew 
York Sun. 

"The meaning and effects of the revolutionary movements in the 
different coimtries of 1 urope, . . . are clearly set forth. . . . The 
author . . . manages his materials well, and we tliink he has managed 
to get into his volume the most important events of the century. He cer- 
tainly has succeeded m making the story of Europe both clear and inierest- 
ing. and he brings together in the closing chapter the influence of the papfc 
eighty-five years upon modern progress. The period he covers is practically 
contemporary history, and it is rather difflcult to get contem[)orary history 
written as b'iefly as tne history of the past, but it must be said that the 
author excels In condensation, clearness and interest."— Sostoîi Tranacript. 

FOTTRNIER'S KAPOLEON THE FIRST 

Translated by Margaret B. Cor win and Arthur D. Bis- 
SELL, edited by Prof. E. G. Bourne of Yale. With a full 
critical and topical bibliography. 750 pages, 12mo, $2.00 net. 

"Excellent . . . Courtesy probably makes the editor place it after 

the works of and . . . there can be no doubt as to the 

superiority as a history of Fournier's book." — New York Sun. 

" An authoritative biography . . . admirably adapted to American 
needs and tastes." — Times'' Saturday Review. 

"This notable biography . . . The work of translation has been 
accomplished in a very satisfactory manner." — SprUigfleld Re'putjUcan. 

" One of the best of the single volume biographies and its value is greatly 
enhanced by the exhaustive bibliography which is appended." — Dial. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

84 West 83rd Street New York 

(is '10) 



BOOKS ON SOCIAL SCIENCE 

IN THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 

York 



THE NEGRO 

By W. E. BuRGHART DuBois, 
author of Souls of Black Folks, 
etc. A history of the black man 
in Africa, America or wherever 
else his presence has been or is 
important. 
CO - PARTNERSHIP AND 
PROFIT SHARING 
By Aneurin Williams. Ex- 
plains the various types of co- 
partnership or profit-sharing, or 
both, and gives details of the 
arrangements now _ in force in 
many of the great industries. 

POIilTICAL. THOUGHT; 
From Herbert Spencer 
to the Present Day 
By Ernest Barker, M.A,, Ox- 
ford. 
UNEMPLOYMENT 
By A. C. PiGou, M.A., Professor 
of Political Economy at Cam- 
bridge. The meaning, measure- 
ment, distribution, and effects of 
unemployment, its relation to 
wages, trade fluctuations, and 
disputes, and some proposals of 
remedy or relief. 

C03IM0N-SENSE IN LAW 
By Prof. Paul Vinogradoff, 
D.C.L., LL.D. Social and Legal 
Rules — Legal Rights and Duties 
— Facts and Acts in Law — Leg- 
islation — Custom — Judicial Pre- 
cedents — Equity — The Law of 
Nature. 

ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL 
ECONOMY 
By S. J. Chapman, Professor of 
Political Economy and Dean of 
Faculty of Commerce and Ad- 
ministration, University of Man- 
chester. A clear statement of 
the theory of the subject for 
non-expert readers. 

THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH 
By J. A. HoBSON, author of 
Problems of Poverty. A study 
of the structure and working of 
the modern business world. 

VARLIAMENT. Its History, 

Constitution, and 

Practice 

By Sir Courtenay P. Ilbert, 

Clerk of the House of Commons. 

"Can be praised without reserve. 

Cloth bound, good paper, clear type, 256 pages 

per volume, bibliographies, indices, also maps 

or illustrations where neeaed. Each complete 

and sold separately. 



Admirably clear." — New 

THE* SOCIALIST MOVE- 
MENT 
By J. Ramsay Macdonald, Chair- 
man of the British Labor Party. 
"The latest authoritative exposi- 
tion of Socialism." — San Fran- 
cisco Argonaut. 

LIBERALISM 
By Prof. L, T. Hobhouse, au- 
thor of Democracy and Reaction. 
A masterly philosophical and his- 
torical review of the subject. 

THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
By F. W. Hirst, Editor of the 
London Economist. Reveals to 
the non-financial mind the facts 
about investment, speculation, 
and the other terms which the 
title suggests. 

THE EVOLUTION OF IN- 
DUSTRY 
By D. H. MacGregor, Professor 
of Political Economy, University 
of Leeds. An outline of the re- 
cent changes that have given us 
the present conditions of the 
working classes and the princi- 
ples involved. 

ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH 
LAW 
By W. M. Geldart, Vinerian 
Professor of English Law, Ox- 
ford. A_ simple statement of the 
basic principles of the English 
legal system on which that of 
the United States is based. 

THE SCHOOL; An Introduc- 
tion to the Study of 
Education 
By J. J. FiNDLAY, Professor of 
Education, _ Manchester. Pre- 
sents the history, the psycholog- 
ical basis, and the theory of the 
school with a rare power of sum- 
mary and suggestion. 

IRISH NATIONALITY 

By Mrs. J. R. Green. A bril- 
liant account of the genius and 
mission of the Irish people. "An 
entrancing work, and I would 
advise every one with a drop of 
Irish blood in his veins _ or a 
vein of Irish sympathy in his 
heart to read it." — New York 
Times' Review. 



50 



C. 



Volume 
net, per 



HENRY 
Publishers 



HOLT 



AND 

(x'15) 



COMPANY 
New York 



SHEPHERD'S HISTORICAL ATLAS 

By William R. Shephekd, Professor in Columbia University. {American 
Historical Se?ies.) '11. xi+216+94 pp. 8vo. $2.50. 

This Atlas, which has been arranged especially for use in 
American colleges, contains nearly 300 maps in colors, includ- 
ing about 35 double-page and 60 single-page maps. The 
range in time is from Mycenean Greece and the Orient in 
1450 B.c. to the Europe and United States of the present day 
and to the Panama Canal with its surroundings. Two quad- 
ruple-page maps illustrate the Age of Discovery, 1340-1600, 
and colonies, dependencies, and trade routes of the present. 

The maps cover a wide range in their character, including 
several physical maps, the plans of important military cam- 
paigns, and a large number of maps which are out of the 
ordinary, as for instance, those showing the development of 
Christianity to 1300, medieval commerce in Europe and in 
Asia, the plan of a medieval manor, the present distribution 
of the principal European languages and races, the localities 
in Western Europe and in England connected with American 
history, and the westward development of the United States. 

A complete index is added containing over 23,000 refer- 
ences to the names that appear on the maps. 

George L. Burr, Cornell University : — This is the book for 
which we have long been waiting, and with every page I turn 
™y joy is redoubled. To recount all that makes it a satisfac- 
tion to me would be tedious, but you will let me express my 
especial gratitude for the attention given to the physical 
background and the effective portrayal of relief. 

F. M. Fling, University of Nebraska: — Both conception and 
execution are all that could be desired. I am glad that at last 
we have an atlas in English that deserves to take rank with the 
best atlases published on the Continent. 

John H. Latane, Washington and Lee University: — From 
the cursory examination which I have so far been able to give 
it I am delighted with it. I have tested its detail by looking 
up a number of obscure places in the index and have found 
every one without difficulty. It supplies to historical students 
a long felt need. 

H. G. Plum, University of Iowa: — It is the atlas we have 
wanted for a long time. The mechanical and press work could 
not be better. The periods are well balanced and there are 
many new maps hitherto unavailable, yet greatly needed. The 
collection of medieval ecclesiastical maps and the commerce and 
trade maps will be gladly welcomed by all teachers of history. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

34 West 33d Street New York 



CIV 



pD -l8l^ 



m"^^' . ^^ 










